Tag Archives: design

uniquely us

  By Kevin | May 22, 2010 - 11:10 am | wedding
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. . . We want our wedding to be fun, happy, uniquely us and recorded for posterity. (from our wedding manifesto, it’s a good thing we wrote that thing.)

Main Entry: unique

Pronunciation: \yu̇-ˈnēk\
Function: adjective
Etymology: French, from Latin unicus, from unus one — more at one
Date: 1602

1 : being the only one : sole <his unique concern was his own comfort> <I can’t walk away with a unique copy. Suppose I lost it? — Kingsley Amis> <the unique factorization of a number into prime factors>
2 a : being without a like or equal : unequaled <could stare at the flames, each one new, violent, unique — Robert Coover> b : distinctively characteristic : peculiar 1 <this is not a condition unique to California — Ronald Reagan>
3 : unusual <a very unique ball-point pen> <we were fairly unique, the sixty of us, in that there wasn’t one good mixer in the bunch — J. D. Salinger>

via – merriam-webster.com

I don’t remember what made us pick the word unique the day we wrote the manifesto, but I think it works well with our combined personalities and aesthetics.  It does however create a bit of pressure to be more different than similar to our peers.  So I sometimes, in my wedding research, see things that catch my eye and I think “we could do that,” which is quickly followed by, “hmm but is it unique enough?”  It’s a fine line, isn’t it?

I’m hoping that as we get closer to the design synthesis stage, our own ideas will emerge out of the collection of disparate elements we have on the table before us.  You’ll have to wait and see.

p.s. I’m pretty sure we’re almost done on that recorded for posterity part.

design (wedding or otherwise)

  By Kevin | May 11, 2010 - 8:01 pm | wedding
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Design is the planning that lays the basis for the making of objects or systems.

As a verb, “to design” refers to the process of originating and developing a plan for a product, structure, system, or component with intention[1]. As a noun, “a design” is used for either the final (solution) plan (e.g. proposal, drawing, model, description) or the result of implementing that plan in the form of the final product of a design process[2]. This classification aside, in its broadest sense no other limitations exist and the final product can be anything from clothing to graphical user interfaces to skyscrapers. Even virtual concepts such as corporate identity and cultural traditions such as celebration of certain holidays[3] (LIKE WEDDINGS) are sometimes designed.

Typical steps – A design process may include a series of steps followed by designers. Depending on the product or service, some of these stages may be irrelevant, ignored in real-world situations in order to save time, reduce cost, or because they may be redundant in the situation.  Typical stages of the design process include:

(via http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design )

Until a last week, I looked at the wedding as an “event”, not as a project or designable celebration.  When I made the realization, I felt a little stupid.  I should have gotten the point while I wrote my post about wedding themes, shouldn’t I have?  Well now, I’m completely on board the event design process.  (I apparently wasn’t completely paying attention to those elaborate weddings Meg and I have seen on the Style Channel either.  Obviously a $100k wedding has more than a wedding planner.)  The one thing that I also have realized is that I’m at a loss in the wedding vocabulary and information, clearly behind Meg for sure (I think women have a special wedding memory gene, but I can’t be sure.)  Either way it’s like someone has asked me to design scenery for 17th Century Japan.  I have almost no idea what that might entail.  Thus I’m currently in the Analysis and Research stage of “Wedding Design”  Below is a short list of  my current research “materials”  feel free to suggest any more you might have.  Kevin