Those of you who know me or have been reading my blogs and articles, you know, I am all about whats real:  “For anything in life, first you have to dig deep and look within!”

Finding what it is that makes you happy, and connecting to that, is what I always recommend to my brides.  Dealing with so many brides, I realize sometimes they don’t know what they want and instead of finding about their own interests and likes, all they desire is what  is in magazines, TV shows and windows.  I want them to know no wedding will be real and memorable if it is not “a real persons vision”!

There are few things that I almost never miss doing on my free weekends. My long walk early morning in Central Park, window shopping on Madison Ave, going to Farmers Market, stopping by local Flea Market and ending my day with Green Tea Soy Latte at Barnes & Noble while browsing through books and magazines for inspirations!

It took me a while to find what my niche was! There are so many things we like and love in life, but finding the ultimate, the ones that nourishes your soul and makes you deeply happy, is a delicious joy that I can hardly explain.

Thats the feeling I want for my brides. To find what speaks to them and what represents them and what makes them happy, in the middle of all the lovely things in life.  To start you need to look at you and your surroundings and see why you have collected certain things and what they mean to you. Once you start thinking this way, instead of so many pictures and magazines and confusions… you can simply write down, who you are, what you want and how you like to represent that in your big day. One of the questions I always get asked is how much time is enough to plan a wedding? “If you know who you are and what you want, we can plan it in less than 2 months. If you don’t know the answer, I don’t think even a year or two is enough”.

When you look at the bridal magazines or someone else’s wedding pictures or wedding blogs, etc what you need to see is, what led them to that decision, not to copy the exact thing. Why? Because that is not you, that is the other bride!!! You need to look at the magazine, read the blog… and think  how did they come up with the decorations, dress, flowers etc…not what it is!!!perhaps that bride represented herself with her choices!

I read somewhere about the differences between French and Italian Chefs: “They say French chefs look at the produce and think about what it can become. Italian chefs, on the other hand, think of ways to let it star on its own”. Given a choice I pick the Italian chef since I am a true believer of “the real shine”.

Saturday I started my day with my Central Park walk . I love to take pictures and one of these days I have to invest on an actual camera but for now my black berry is doing the job. Taking pictures of the things that make me happy and inspire me is a hobby of mine.

Take pictures of the things that make you happy. Put them next to each other and think why and what it is about it that makes you happy.  Thats your style right there!!!! Me, I am green, love nature and anything in its original state will work for me.

  

I love the window shopping especially on Madison and Fifth Avenue. Sometimes the window decorations alone are an inspiration board by itself. I took this picture few weeks ago from Bergdorf s window and it was a great inspiration for the baby shower that my friend was planning.

   

A pillow at Saks Fifth Ave

 Versatile and Lively Union Square Farmers Market!

Than I was on my way  to one of my most favorite places, the Farmers Market. Shopping organic food, not only gives me joy to help out our local farmers, but it also gives me a deep “connection to the source kind of feeling”. Believe it or not, it gives me such a joy and brings a smile to my face.

Done with my grocery list for next week!

Off course a little bit of wine tasting is a must!!!!

Got my flowers and had my favorite Grilled Tofu Sandwich across the street.

Just a little side note!

A quick stop at Whole Foods market shopping for the week ahead and on my way to Barnes and Noble.

The reason I am sharing this with you, you ask? I had to plan a Vegan wedding; there was so much conflict between my bride and her family. Her being a Vegan and the groom being Vegetarian and their families not, created a lot of issues at first. She was convinced that since this is their day, she wanted to have a full Vegan Wedding and her family, obviously, was not happy with that decision. Finally they asked for my opinion, and what I said was: This day is about the bride and groom, who they are and if this is what they want, I am sure “no guests” will die by not eating meat one night. It ended up that we created one of the best Vegan cocktail receptions and plated five course dinners that even the guests were surprised how everything tasted so good. Her flower arrangements were mostly from local flower farmer sand everything in their decorations, from her wedding gown to their centerpieces represented the bride and groom!!! Isn’t that awesome?

Everything means something to me? Does that make sense? I see inspiration on almost everything but the ones I love are the ones that I don’t have to change and am just looking to see how they can shine on their own.

 

Some random pictures I took at Barnes and Noble.

With Love,

Ferinoosh

 

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