To give yourselves and your guests a fully immersive experience on your Wedding Day, ensure that your Wedding appeals to all five of your senses!
With added ways to provoke memories of your Wedding Day, plan elements to appeal to you sight, smell, sound, taste and touch- for a full sensory experience that will stay with you for years to come.
I've been exploring ways in which your Wedding can appeal to each of your senses and shared with you some ideas and inspiration to ensure that you’ll have more than just photos to revive the memories of your Wedding Day.
So, for a powerful sensory experience to intensify your Wedding Day, enhance your guest experience, as well as giving you another opportunity to individualise and personalise your Wedding, stay tuned in to learn a little more about how your Wedding can appeal to your senses.
Sight
The first impression your guests will have of your Wedding, will be the visual aspect of your day. From the moment your guests receive your Wedding invitation, to when they arrive on the day, the first sight of your Wedding will set the tone for the event.
Colour is a big contributing factor to the aesthetic of your day and will likely form the foundation of your Wedding design. And it can be incorporated into pretty much everything; from stationery, to flowers, dresses, to table linens… even your food and drinks choices can reflect your chosen colour scheme. By using a range of complimentary colours and tones, you can add depth and texture to your colour scheme and create an aesthetic synonymous to you and your big day.
Consider how colours can affect your guests’ moods: with whites being calming, oranges and yellows creating a friendly, social atmosphere; whilst hot pink, red and purple are energising colours. Create a colour palette to reflect the tone of your day and combine them with colours and textures to appeal to the design of your Wedding. You could include an accent colour with furniture pieces, accessories, flowers and stationery- even your Wedding Day attire, could add a pop of colour and create an appealing and cohesive effect.
Your room layout, style and most importantly, the lighting, will also have a huge impact on the visual aesthetic of your event. It can help to create the right mood and ambiance for your Wedding and help you to set the tone for your day.
All of these elements can transform the overall appearance of your Wedding and appeal to your guests’ senses. Combine sight with other senses too, to create an even greater immersive experience, such as smell (think flowers), taste (think food), and sound (think natural background noise or live music)… more on this to come!
Another way to incorporate sight into your Wedding, is with a first look before your ceremony- a wonderful opportunity for you to have a private and intimate moment with your partner before your ceremony and to give you the opportunity to embrace the meaning of your Wedding Day and celebrate, you, as a couple.
I believe the very best way to incorporate sight into your Wedding is to stop, just once in a while, throughout the day and take a look around. Give yourselves the opportunity to see each other, see the beautiful day that you have created and to see a room filled with your loved ones, happy and together, at such a special moment in your life.
Smell
Scent, is a vastly underrated element of your Wedding and can be a wonderful way to prompt and enhance memories of your Wedding Day for years to come. As such, it’s not a sense that should be overlooked, to fully immerse yourselves and your guests in your Wedding Day.
There are many ways to create a characteristic scent for your Wedding Day: organically, using your natural surroundings and introducing specific items to your décor (for example specific flowers, plants or fruit); through the food and drink that you choose to serve, or synthetically, with a personalised scent. Just be wary of artificial (plug-in) scents, as they sometimes have a negative effect on allergy sufferers.
Consider the scents that you want to associate with your Wedding Day- think about your theme, which scents are synonymous to your design and consider how you could incorporate them into your day. Don’t underrate the natural scents of the great outdoors- whether it’s the salty sea air for a nautical themed Wedding, the smell of freshly cut grass, roses and lavender for an English Country Garden inspired Wedding, citrus and rosemary for a Mediterranean themed Wedding or the smell of a crackling fire for a Winter Wedding.
Using natural flowers and plants in your Wedding Day design is the most common and popular way to add a scent to your Wedding. Either through bouquets and buttonholes or table centres and décor, surrounding your guests in a floral delight is sure to appeal not only to their sense of smell, but their sight too. Consider a flower-lined aisle containing fragrant plants and flowers, and as you glide up the aisle, your dress brushes against the flowers, and you immerse your guests and of course your partner in the scent. Think about the time of day that the flowers are most fragrant and choose them accordingly for each element of your big day- your florist will be able to help with this.
Alternatively, you may choose to create a signature scent or perfume for your Wedding Day! Whether you choose to give a special scent to one another, as a future reminder of your wonderful day, or you choose to wear a scent that has special significance to you both, the scent associated with your Wedding will generate a strong memory for years to come.
There are many ways to introduce your Wedding Scent to your guests- a little spritz on the invitation suite before you send it out will give your guests the scent of the Wedding before they even arrive. Another popular method, is a light spritz on the table linen as well as simply spraying the air at your time of arrival.
If you do choose to go for a signature scent, be cautious of mixing your scent with the smells of your Wedding Day food- combined, they can have some interesting effects! So, either check out the combination before the big day, or keep your signature scents away from your meal!
And as a final note to caution, subtle scents will work better- an overwhelming scent can have the opposite effect to what’s desired and make your guests uncomfortable. So keep it light.
Sound
Incorporating different styles of music throughout different parts of your day will help to change the mood as you move from your Wedding Ceremony, all the way through to your evening reception. Live music, though not essential, it a great way to set the tone for the event and also adds a visual impact to the entertainment.
Focus on the sounds that you want at your Wedding, whether that’s a jazz band for the drink’s reception, the perfect dinner music or the DJ striking the right tunes to get your guests on the dance floor. By hitting the right note with the sounds you want, you can find ways to hide any noise that you don’t!
Think about combining sound and sight, consider how your music choices compliment your style and theme and how that can impact your guest mood and Wedding ambiance- for example an elegantly dressed string quartet will set a sophisticated tone for your Wedding, whilst a roaming mariachi band could give a fun, carnival feel to your event. The music that you choose to play will help to set the tone of your event, both through the music and through the appearance, so consider your music based on the theme and style of your Wedding.
But music isn’t the only way to appeal to your sense of hearing, natural sounds, such as the sound of the sea and the waves, birdsong, rustling leaves and trickling water, can also help you to create an ambiance at your Wedding, as well as creating a calm and relaxed atmosphere for your Wedding guests.
Taste
The food and drink served at your Wedding are perhaps some of the most fun aspects to plan, whilst giving you the opportunity to enjoy the flavours that you love the most! Try to design your food and drinks menus to compliment your Wedding theme and design, whilst ensuring that they work well with each other- both throughout the day, and with one another. By planning your Wedding flavours and harmonising them with your Wedding theme, you should be able to coordinate your taste experience with the rest of your senses.
Taste is a sense that draws on all of the other senses- make sure that your food and drink in visually appealing, perhaps even complementing your Wedding colour scheme (a great option for signature cocktails and decadent dessert tables!). Much of what we taste is influenced by smell too, so not only should your chosen food and drink smell and taste just as good as it looks, but it also shouldn’t be overpowered by other background scents. The texture of your food will also play a big role in your guest’s experience of your menu, whilst the sound of your food (yes that’s right, sound!) should help your menu appeal to your sense of taste even more… think the crisp of flaky pastry, smooth, gooey fondant, or the snap of a chocolate topper! Be sure that your food and drinks choices are complimentary to all your senses- not just your taste, whilst keeping on theme.
And not forgetting the Wedding Cake… without a doubt your Wedding cake, should taste as good as it looks. And with the variety of flavours, fillings, toppings and decoration to choose from, you can ensure that your cake can appeal to all of your senses, reflect your style and theme… and remain the show stopper that it should be!
Touch
Straight away, with the right textures and materials, your Wedding can receive an immediate upgrade, by giving quality to the items that your guests will touch and hold; using textures that are on-theme in your Wedding style will not only add to your Wedding aesthetic, but also give you and your guests a touch experience, not to forget!
Layering different textures, fabrics and patterns, either as part of your invitation suite, or on your table scape, not only creates an aesthetically pleasing and eye-catching design, but also appeals to your sense of touch. Any high-touch areas at your Wedding should be taken into account and can be used to influence the sensations that your guests experience on the Day. From the quality of paper and card used for the invitation suite, to the weight of the cutlery and texture of the napkins at your Wedding Breakfast- all will bring the touch sensation into play and add to your guest experience. For Wedding clothes, look to wool or velvet suits and silk or velvet dresses for a hint of luxury and an opulent touch sensation.
Other touch factors to consider are the environmental factors, such as the warm sand at a beach Wedding, or the feel of crisp leaves at an Autumn Woodland Wedding, so consider your environmental touch factors and how they compliment your Wedding style and theme. Finally, heat and cold factors also impact your sense of touch, so to keep your guests comfortable throughout your Wedding Day; be sure to keep them cool and warm accordingly, to maximise your guest comfort and experience.
If you’re looking to plan your own, unique Wedding in Essex and the surrounding areas, you too can experience the perfect Wedding Day with the help, support & guidance of a professional Wedding Planner.
I can help you to unravel your ideas, develop you dreams & bring your Wedding vision to life. Connecting you with the very best and most trusted, local Wedding Professionals to craft your day; I can help you to create a more sustainable Wedding, without compromising on the style, elegance & luxury of your event.
With luxury & dedicated Wedding Planning support, you can enjoy a fun, relaxing & stress-free Wedding Planning Journey. You can also rest assured that every detail will be taken care of and your journey from start to finish will be in the safest hands.
No matter where you are in your Wedding Planning journey, I can offer support and guidance to help you achieve your perfect Day. To learn more about the Wedding Planning services available to you, follow the links below or contact me to discover how I can help.
