All the cool girls are doing it

There's something fairly new in the realm of wedding planning: The Style Board.  (Well, new since I planned my first wedding back in the dark ages!) It's basically a collage of elements that you like or plan to use.  They generally show colors and themes and make it easy to give sort of a one-glance idea of what the wedding will be like.  I've been collecting stuff for, like, ever and so I put together one of these new-fangled thingamabobs myself. 

There's a lot of red there, right?  Funny.  I wanted red just because it's striking, romantic and Prince Charming's favorite color.  A couple weeks ago I was watching a webcast of an event at DFTW where David Tutera declared that red would be the big color for weddings in 2012.  So much for my life as a trendsetter! 

Here's what I hope this little collage gives clues to:  we want the wedding to be a celebration.  Because of the kids and the second marriage thing and the destination wedding element, we want our wedding to be a big, silly, whimsical party with hints of Main Steet USA and 1950's ice cream soda shoppe sweetness.

As for the tone.  Formality shmormality.  We don't want any of it.  It's a P-A-R-T-A-Y!  I want to dance with my Prince Charming and our kids to every goofy participation dance the DJ can dig up. I want to look back on the day and remember feeling loved, laughing my head off and having an amazing time. I need to start brushing up on my Cha Cha Slide and Time Warp, I guess.