Amy Lord is the founder of The Joy Eclectic—a leading provider of boutique, bespoke wedding decor and styling for non-traditional weddings.

Amy reflects on her role as a wedding stylist and details her approach to new clients with the help of an old wedding day tradition: something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue.

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Something old

I’m a trained theatre designer and installation artist, which means my creative process draws upon a wide range of aesthetics and influences—I wanted my brand to have "eclectic" in its name to reflect this.

At the moment, I’m particularly drawn to dreamy aesthetics: Vaporwave, 80’s, Memphis style, Maximalism, Kitsch and the hyperreal! But for weddings, I always start with the couple. I love taking their spark of curiosity and amping it up into something gorgeous yet coherent—even if that means something minimalist. I love a bit of quiet simplicity now and again!

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Something new

I always start the client relationship with an online questionnaire followed by a free 30-minute discovery call on Zoom. If we all had the time to meet in person over a lovely coffee this would be my preference but I work with couples all over the UK so it’s not really an option! The video call is a 2-way conversation—couples can ask me anything and we can talk about the next steps and plan going forward. I think seeing faces is so important, especially when a couple is trusting you with their wedding. For me, it’s like going on a date, you need to see if the spark is there.

I have a bank of questions that I like to ask new clients. What do they do in their spare time? Where do they buy their clothes? What is their interior style? What is their musical taste? What do they watch on TV? Obviously, these aren’t directly wedding-related questions but they can often start unearthing clues about which direction their wedding design could go in, and help me to understand what makes them tick.

I often do a mini presentation/moodboard of first ideas to get couples excited about how their wedding is going to look and feel. After all, half the fun is in the planning and anticipation!

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Something borrowed

I encourage my clients to find inspiration in all the usual places online, but to also dig deep into their personal tastes and influences where there may be something to play with that would make their big day super memorable. The value of event designers comes from our ability to tease out a coherent, design scheme from seemingly random pieces of the puzzle.

I always ask my clients to collate all their inspiration in one place, even better if they can use folders to group different elements together. When faced with a mishmash of inspiration it’s hard to know what has made that person save the image—it could be that they like a colour, a texture, a dress etc. but by grouping into categories e.g. table plans, table dressing, hairstyles etc. we can speed up the design process.

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Something blue

I call this colour palette, Moody Gothic Glam. This is a moodboard (or vibe board as I like to call them!) from one of my Power Hour design consultation sessions. In these sessions, I put together a wedding design plan for a couple to either use themselves (most commonly for dry-hire weddings) or with me going forward as their stylist.

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Find out more about Amy's services on her website, or browse an archive of her work on Instagram.