Last week you sat through CitySaheli’s “Inspiration Boards 101.” Here you learned to create a wedding inspiration board for your big day and were introduced you to Saheli Mili Shah Brown and some of her amazing boards .  As promised, this week we spoke to Mili to find out what motivated her when creating her boards, how she used them and more!  Check out what she shared with us as well as several of her beautiful boards.

1. At what point in your wedding planning process did you decide to create inspiration boards?
I had a vision of the overall feeling I wanted to create at each of our wedding events from the start. Once we were set on our venues, almost a year before our wedding itself, I began to collect photos for the inspiration boards. As an architect, design and details were really important to me… I had seen inspiration boards on some wedding blogs and thought they would be a great way to convey my ideas and visions to vendors. I think that starting so early really helped me to convey the feeling of each event in a very specific way, because as I came across more photos and had more time to develop the ideas in my mind, my ideas would change.

2.  When creating your inspiration boards, where did you look first for your inspiration?  Especially since you wanted to mix east-west elements, where did you find those perfect pictures?
I think I was first inspired by each venue in terms of what the feeling for the event taking place there would be like. Then once I had a vague vision in my mind, I spent a LOT of time browsing both Indian and American wedding blogs to find the perfect photos to illustrate what I was imagining. A few sites which I think are excellent and where I found some photos were stylemepretty.com, marigoldsandmithai.com, feteny.com, kateparkerweddings.com, and prestonbailey.com.

3. How did your inspiration boards help you when planning your wedding? Did you use them? Did people understand what you were going for?
I definitely think the inspiration boards helped in planning our wedding. We showed the inspiration boards to our wedding planner, stationery designer, decorator, tenting company, caterers, and probably more. They were, of course, most helpful to our decorator/florist, who was able to really understand my taste and vision and make suggestions based on what she knew I would love. 

Ceremony 1 – We absolutely love the picture of the Ganesh.  Where did you find it and how did you incoporate it into your wedding?

 The Ganesh photo (flower elephant) came from Preston Bailey’s website. Our decorator made a similar floral elephant which was a focal point at our ceremony. Our ceremony venue was at a golf club, and the clubhouse had a beautiful procession of doorways leading out to the lawns where the ceremony itself was being held. The Ganesh was centered outside of the last doorway on the patio, so guests were able to enjoy it on their way to the ceremony seating as well as during lunch on the patio. What I liked about the Ganesh was that it was symbolic in Indian traditions, but was modern and fusion-y at the same time. It was the only really iconically Indian symbol or image we had at our ceremony (apart from our outfits) and as a single item, I think it really captured the essence of our ceremony.

I would say this board was the most important board in terms of conveying the mood of our ceremony. I wanted it to feel like it was the marriage of both me and my husband. My husband grew up in Connecticut and Maine. I wanted the adirondack chairs to represent his New-England heritage. I love how the mandap chairs and aisle flowers are so simple yet so bold, especially in those colors (white, esp.) against the grass. The photo of the large umbrellas came from a wedding I attended in Mexico, and the draped tent (also from Preston Bailey) was our rain alternative.

Ceremony continued—Perhaps the inspiration board most relavent to the mundap.  Did you know what you wanted before you found the picture or did the picture you find help shape your thoughts?

 I wanted our mandap to be really simple so that it would not obstruct the view of the surrounding lawns and trees from our guests. I had a vague image in my mind of the type of mandap I wanted, something simple and natural, and it was not like anything I had ever seen at an Indian wedding before. I couldn’t believe it when I came across the first photo of the black mandap, and then the other indoor mandap, which, combined, were exactly what I was imagining… no fuss, natural dark wood, flowy white fabric to pop against the grass, whimsical garlands in the trees…

Sangeet– Love the Om Shanti Om Theme going–how did you make this 60s’ disco come to life? How did this help shape what you wore? Is this something you showed your designer?

 The photos from the middle portion of the board came from marigoldsandmithai.com, and they really inspired me for this event. We had selected a very clean, ultra-modern venue for our sangeet. The sangeet was supposed to be our Indian music night, but I am not really into Indian music and don’t watch Bollywood movies, so it felt a little bit more like my parents’ night, but I still wanted it to be ours as well. I was having trouble figuring out how to create a theme that was relevant to Indian music and tradition, but that was also not typical and that represented both my husband’s and my taste. When I came upon the spread on marigoldsandmithai, I was thrilled. The retro-modern theme was exactly what I was looking for, and combined with the feeling of the venue space, it lent itself to a unique imagery. I added in photos of the venue and some other details to the boards to supplement the idea and finalize my vision. At the actual event, we used dramatic up-lighting, projected black and white Hindi movies from when my parents were in their 20’s, had our DJ mix old Hindi songs which my parents knew and loved from their youth with modern hip-hop beats, hung mirrored balls above the dance floor, and overall had a modern backdrop with some classic elements. For example, the sofa my husband and I sat on during dance performances and the crystal vases which both had traditional shapes in ultra modern finishes.

Mehndi — The Moroccan theme is a classic and quintessential them for Mehndis– What elements did you really want to showcase?

Our mehndi party took place at my parents’ house under a tent on the water. I wanted to play up the tent and create a very ethnic feel because, for our guests, and my husband’s family and friends specifically, this would be the introduction to the weekend and for many, their first Indian event ever. But, I also didn’t want to over-power the beautiful view of the Long Island Sound from our patio. The image in the center of the board of the girl looking out from the arches over the water was important because the silhouette of the space would be so prominent and would have to be special to frame the amazing view. We lined the tent with an embroidered fabric border like in the photo on the bottom left and lined the poles with fabric to create this effect. To play up the ethnicity of the event we had a lot of fabrics, pillows, and lamps all over. We brought in furniture to set the mood and an oriental rug to cover the floor with, but I didn’t want any hookah’s or non-functional props. We had ladies doing mehndi for the guests (lots of our guy friends got it too!), and had some dancers come in to perform some traditional Bollywood dancing as well as belly dancing, which I think was amazing in terms of giving the event and guests a focal point. Plus, it was so fun to join in with the dancers!

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