Misty Mclendon Photography
We describe ourselves as value-based planners, so what does that really mean?
It means that at each step of our process from discovery to the wedding day, we take into account your values, your big picture, that feeling that you want your guests to walk away with into mind.
This can mean a few different things depending on your values as a couple, a few examples are below, but these are endless.
- Sustainability – we commit to make the world a better place in our daily lives, so we want this brought over into our wedding planning as well.
- We are an ally, and want our vendors to align with us. That may be LGBTQ+ or Black owned businesses and we want to align our dollars into causes and companies that align with us.
- We want our wedding to be truly authentic and represent us as a couple. We don’t want to buy into the “traditional wedding hype” and really want our friends and family to come together and feel like they know us better for having attended our wedding.
- We want to let our nerd flag fly high and proud. Inside jokes are our thing, so we want those to be integrated into key pieces of our wedding and share those with our guests. Other times we want them to be super sneaky and only recognized by those who understand us.
Whatever your value is – we want to know! Through each step of the process, we will bring your value through and make sure it’s honored. For the sake of this blog, let’s go with the sustainability example to show you how it can thread into each part of the process.
Paper Culture plants a tree for every order of their announcements, invitations and other wedding paper products.
Throughout the design process, we prioritize sustainability.
- We will present invitations from a sustainable source, such as Paper Culture (they plant a tree for every order) and encourage online RSVPs.
- We can collaborate with the florist to reduce the use of floral foam in the design (read more about why reducing floral foam is important). This may mean fewer flowers in parts of the wedding, and more vases (reusable of course) to make sure that the flowers are still in great condition while not using foam as the source of the water In the Texas heat, this can be tricky, so we will use color consciously and as much out of the heat as possible. Depending on your style, we could focus on dried flowers or other decor features for the outdoor portions of the wedding if it’s toasty.
- Utilize real dishes (not one use) or bamboo disposables. Corn cups are amazing for the bar if you’re looking for disposables there too without all the one-use plastics. All of the disposables I just mentioned are compostable, so we’ll take a look at that too!
- We can plan for compost at the wedding! Not only does this work for food & the food service items listed above, but this can work for the flowers too (any that we can’t save).
- For flowers that we can save, we can re-package them or donate with the glass to nursing homes or other locations so the flowers live on for longer than just your wedding day.
This is by no means a comprehensive list, but you can get the general idea of how each component of the wedding can really come together to encompass your values and make sure that at the end of the day, your wedding is a direct reflection of you two as a couple – values and all.
We can’t wait to plan with you and bring your values into the wedding for a truly authentic experience.
