Photoshop vs. Reality: Wedding Inspiration Mock Ups

A little over a year ago (yikes, I'm such an old bee now!) I wrote a blog post about how much I love to mock things up in Photoshop or Illustrator. I've never been very good at just imagining or hand sketching things, but I like having a clearly laid out vision before I bring a project to life. It really saves on the cost of materials for projects too, since there isn't as much need to experiment.

I also said in that old blog post that it would be fun to come back after my wedding to compare my early Photoshop mocked up inspirations with the final result. So let's take a look back at a few of the many, many mock ups I created early in my wedding planning stages!

Invitations

I'd initially had another design for our invites, but it was too complicated and was more DIY time than we could handle. So I mocked up a scaled down version of our invitation suite.

And the final product. Other than some rounded corners, these came out pretty dang close to my mock up! Not only did doing a mock up really help me nail down exactly what elements I wanted to include, but it also gave me a great start on the content for the inserts that I printed.
Our Ceremony Set Up

We loved the ceremony site at our venue, the trees, the meadow, the bay view, it had a lot of natural beauty, that only needed a little decor. But when you're working with a big empty meadow, you've got to use some imagination. Or some Photoshop! Originally I had wanted us to build an arch that was bigger than the one provided by our venue, and had wanted an aisle runner, so my heels wouldn't sink into the grass.

However, after being lied to by the vendor who I was going to rent chargers and the aisle runner from, I decided on just using rose petals on the aisle. And Mr. Cola convinced me that it would be too much work to transport or assemble a DIY arch, so we ended up just decorating the arch the venue already had. The final result was beautiful though, even if not exactly like my original idea!

(By Shoot Me Now Photography)

(By Shoot Me Now Photography)

Card Box

This was an easy one....and probably it wasn't necessary to do a mock up of a card box. But I did it back when it was too early to actually start working on wedding things, very early in the planning stages, and it turned out almost exactly like my Photoshopped version.

(By Shoot Me Now Photography)

Table Decor and Centerpieces

These mock ups ended up only becoming a partial reality. First, as I'd already mentioned, a vendor lied to us about having purple charger plates available, so we didn't end up getting to use them as I'd planned to add color to our tables.
I was really frustrated at the time, but ended up really happy with the end result. Instead of chargers, I went about $150 over budget and rented overlays for the tables. They still gave me the pops of color I was looking for, without the headache of trying to DIY my own chargers.

As for the centerpieces, I'd say we did pretty good with sticking to my inspiration mock ups. We ended up using some different flowers, but that was expected, since we were at the mercy of whatever was available at the flower market.

The tall centerpieces:

(By Shoot Me Now Photography)

Short centerpieces:

(By Shoot Me Now Photography)

Cocktail table centerpieces:

(By Shoot Me Now Photography)

Rehearsal Dinner Decor

This was one area of planning that I needed a lot of inspiration for. There were no pictures online that I could find of our rehearsal dinner venue actually set up for a dinner. So when we visited the location, I took pictures, which I later Photoshopped chairs, tables and decor onto. My sister was so amazed at how close everything turned out to my mock ups that she pulled up my original blog post on her phone during the rehearsal dinner to show the rest of our wedding party the mock ups for comparison!

The mock ups:

The reality:

The Inspiration Board

And finally, just for fun, and because I've seen a few other bees do it, how about a look at my first inspiration board, compared to what details really happened. I made this first inspiration board to use as my personal blog header, in August 2009 (you can click on these boards for a larger view if you like).

And here are the same details from our wedding (Sorry, when downsizing this board from over 800 MB, it muted the colors a little, but you get the idea!):

(Except the favor boxes, all photos in this board are by Shoot Me Now Photography, cropped by me)

Have you used any graphic design programs to help you solidify your vision for your wedding? And is anyone else as big of a fan of mock ups as I am? :)

(Unless otherwise noted, all photos in this post are personal photos, taken by myself or our guests, and all editing was done by me.)

Photos I Must Have!

This week I need to send my "must have" photo list to our photographers. I'm still working on it, but thought I'd share my list so far with all of you to see if I'm missing something!

While the family portraits are nice to have, after giving it some thought, I think I care most about pictures of Mr. Cola and I together (since after dating for over 7 years, we only have a handful of pictures that aren’t self shots with the top of our heads cut off). And I'm thinking of second most importance to me are pictures of all the DIY details I've worked so hard on.

So here is my list so far, with some inspiration pictures thrown in as examples:

Getting ready
- Bride getting ready, makeup and hair
{Source: the gorgeous Mrs. Lovebird}

- Bride's dress hanging up
{Source: Mrs. Gloss's beautiful dress}

- Bride's shoes (need LOTS of pics!)
- Bride's jewelry
- Bridesmaids getting ready
- Groomsmen getting ready
- Groom getting ready, tying tie, etc

{Source: Mrs. Champagne's recaps}

The First Look
- Groom waiting, back turned
- Bride sneaking up on him from behind
{Source: Mrs. Powder Puff's First Look}

- The first look shot from two angles, face reaction shots & full body shots
- Cute casual pictures (engagement picture style) around the area
- Posed pictures around the area

Before the Ceremony
- Pictures of Mom, Aunt, DOC, Groomsmen and Bridesmaids helping set up
- Pictures of the escort card table, gift/guestbook table, iced tea and lemonade table
- Pictures of the 3 types of center pieces & tables all set up
- Pictures of the cupcake tower
- Final touch ups to hair and makeup with Mom
{Source: Mrs. Martini with her mom}

- Pictures of the wedding party waiting for the ceremony to start

The Ceremony
- Decoration detail - arch, aisle flowers, programs
- Groom's parents walking down the aisle
- Mom walking down the aisle
- Wedding party walking down the aisle
- Groom's face when he sees the bride
- Bride walking by herself
- Bride walking with Dad{Source: Mrs. Peep Toe's walk down the aisle}

- Officiant reading the ceremony
- Bride and Groom reading our vows
- Exchanging rings
- Crowd reactions
- The kiss{Source: Mr. and Mrs. Mouse smootching it up!}

- Walking down the aisle married
{Source: Mr. and Mrs. Penguin celebrating down the aisle}

After the Ceremony
- Bride and Bridesmaids
- Bride and Bridesmaids shoes
- Groom and Groomsmen jumping in the air
{Source: Mrs. Avocado's recaps. I also think this picture of her below is really fun, from the same recap post}

- Bride and Groomsmen
- Groom and Bridesmaids
- Groom and Groomsmen
- Bride and Groom with whole wedding party
- Bride and Groom with Bride's parents & sister
- Bride and Groom with Groom's parents & brother and SIL
- Bride and Groom with both sets of parents and siblings
- Bride and Groom in front of bay view
- Bride and Groom in front of redwood trees
- Bride and Groom on anarondack chairs under trees
- Bride on swing with train of dress streaming behind{Source: Another wedding at our venue}

Cocktail hour
- Candid shots of people drinking
- Pictures of the escort card table
- Pictures of the cheese table and appetizers{Source: Photo from my venue website}

Reception
- Bride and Groom Thanking Guests
- The Buffet (pictures of the set up, the food, the signs, people getting food)
- The MOH and BM giving speeches
- Pics of the head table
- Pics of the bride's parent's table
- Pics of the grooms' parents table
- Pictures of people enjoying food and conversation
- Pictures of the choose your favor table (once it's set up){Source: Mrs. Sprinkle's favor table}

- Pictures of the first dance
- Pictures of the bouquet and garder toss
- Pictures of the cupcake cutting
- Pictures of people dancing, drinking and having fun
- Pictures of people enjoying the fauxtobooth
- Pictures of the bathroom baskets & signs
- Pictures of the rings, by themselves and on our hands, with us holding hands
- Pictures of our rings gently placed on top of a cupcake
{Source: Mrs. Espresso's wedding details}

So, that's my list so far!

Tell me, hive, what awesome pictures am I missing? Do you have any "must have" photos that you want to share? I'd love to see more inspiration!