A ‘travel/exploration meets Hollywood glamour’ theme

After we picked the Riviera Maya for our wedding it was time to pick a theme. From the start of planning we knew we wanted a cohesive look. At first we thought about using just a bold monochromatic color palette but something was missing; it just didn’t reflect our fun, whimsical personalities. So we began doing research on themes.

Photo: The Perfect Palette

We saw elegant summer picnic weddings. Somehow a picnic in the Riviera Maya just doesn’t seem to fit together but oh picnic weddings how I love you. If we were getting married in Michigan you would have been my first choice.

Photo: Sedona Bride

There were beautiful vintage weddings.  While it’s pretty, it was a little too “girly” for us. I am a tomboy at heart so something that feminine would never feel like me.  

There were even some seashell and beach themed weddings that would make any bride giddy. While it is just beautiful and it fit well with the Riviera Maya, we wanted something more us.

We struggled for a few months, never really landing on any one theme. Then one day while looking at an antique map it hit me; why not use exploration and travel as our theme!? I mean, isn't that why we chose a destination wedding- because we love to travel and explore? The compass rose has been a symbol of travel since early nautical times. We could use the compass rose as our monogram and carry it through the entire wedding:

Our Monogram

From there the idea only grew to a modern version of vintage Hollywood glamour mixed with a jungle environment with bright, bold colors:

National Geographic	NDTV

Just imagine Audrey Hepburn in a sleek, jaw dropping dress standing in the middle of a beautiful, rustic jungle/rainforest type environment with beautiful pops of hot pink and tangerine color all around. You just imagined our wedding! Awesome, right?  We call it our rustic-chic travel themed wedding.

While it took us a long time and a bit of unique inspiration to come up with our theme, once we started there seemed to be inspiration everywhere. How did you find your inspiration for your theme and was it easy once you had the very first part of the idea?