How to Create a Mood Board for Inspiration

Whether learning how to become a wedding planner or putting together your own nuptials, knowing how to construct a mood board is essential for a successful design outcome. Often called “wedding inspiration boards,” these planning aides convey an overall design essence while helping maintain focus in a sea of countless ideas. There are many tools to combine images, but these tips will help you create the perfect mood board aesthetic.

Get Off Pinterest for a Moment

The images on a mood board are undoubtedly important, but you can’t start by just snatching a handful of great photos from the internet and slapping them on your board. The process must be more focused, or the entire point of your mood board will be defeated.

Focus on words that represent the bride and groom’s tastes, the things that make them happy and the little things they love about each other. It’s also important to consider descriptors that apply to the venue and season of the wedding. Here are just a few keywords to get you started:

• Intimate
• Rustic
• Ethereal
• Modern
• Glamourous

Once you decide on the theme or inspiration, you’ll need to choose a color palette so your eventual imagery all meshes together. Just like a mood board isn’t your chance to clash a dozen different themes together, you need to keep the palette focused. Online tools such as Coolors, Colormind, and Paletton can all get the job done.

Choose the Right Tool

When you envision a wedding board from years past, you’re likely to remember a large piece of poster board covered in images and unique items. While this certainly was one of the most popular and traditional ways of handling things, it’s important not to forget that modern tools are available.

Remember the PowerPoint presentations your job or school made you do? Today we also have Google Slides. Similar to PowerPoint but web-based and free. You can copy and paste images, crop, and rearrange them. Once complete you can download, save as a pdf, or screenshot it just to get it ready for…Pinterest. Pinterest is filled with mood boards of all types, sizes, designs, colors, and themes. There’s even an online tool known as Canva that’s devoted to mood boards and Easil with easy to follow Pinterest templates to promote your mood board on a blog to help drive traffic to your website or social media pages.

While it might not be the most well-known or popular steps when learning how to be a wedding planner, keeping pace with technology and staying relevant is essential. Also, creating inspiring mood boards is a great way to implement a content marketing strategy.

Don’t Get Hung Up on Other People’s Weddings

There will no doubt be photos of wedding attire, venues, and décor on a mood board, but it’s also essential to think outside of the wedding world. The style is supposed to focus on what defines the happy couple – not what defined other’s nuptials.

Maybe there’s a favorite souvenir or photo from previous travels. How about that fabric swatch that matches her favorite dress for a night on the town? You could even hang a Yankee Candle air freshener that harkens back to a favorite season or vivid smell that jogs a memory.

A wedding mood board must expand outside of weddings, otherwise, it’s merely a copy. As long as you’re finding images that inspire, their actual subject matter doesn’t necessarily matter.

Look at the Big and Small Pictures

Everything on a wedding day isn’t about the small details, but the focus also isn’t merely on the grand elements. You’ll need to focus on both if the mood board is going to be helpful. Compile images of elements that will last throughout the day (e.g. textiles to floral arrangements, food, and favors).

Once the grand elements are figured out, you’ll need to fill in the gaps with the smaller details. These aspects should be based on the words you brainstormed. If you thought “modern,” maybe black and white are on your mind. If “rustic” was a top contender, wooden details are ideal.

Just make sure you stay focused on the “feel” or “mood” you started off with. It’s okay to change things up, but don’t make things clash.

Put the Photos Together

Putting the images you’ve come up with together isn’t necessarily the final step. After all, your vision could evolve over time. This is why you should have a “stash” of photos and images that caught your attention but didn’t initially make the cut.

Of course, if you’re creating the mood board via Pinterest, you could simply use the “sections” of your board as a temporary holding spot for potential images. This can also be used to separate different parts of the day. With Canva, you can drag and drop images as you see fit and create multiple mood boards. Regardless, enjoy putting the images together. It’s your hard work paying off!

Creating a mood board is an important skill you pick up when learning how to become a wedding planner. This also happens to be one of those areas where experience trumps academia every time. Fortunately, these tips can get you on the path to getting it right the first time around. Experience certainly helps, but remember that the mood board is no more than an aide to help you plan the perfect wedding.