This week, I've spent my evenings indulging in all my favorite musicals.  I just adore losing myself in the opulent stage sets, lavish costumes, vibrant technicolor and elaborate, choreographed dance scenes.  It's amazing how easily all that delightful Hollywood dazzle translates to wedding design.  I mean, let's be honest ladies...how many times in your life can you take center stage with your debonair leading man, adorn yourself in the most extravagant gown, jewelry, shoes and accessories, and command the adoring spotlight all evening long?  This is the one night of your life when anything goes, when you single-handedly redefine the meaning of drama queen and rule the stage to the delight of all your family and friends.

For a time, I considered abandoning my Style Boards altogether...they require such peaceful concentration and a willingness to let my mind wander - which became increasingly difficult to accomplish while meeting the demands of running my business.  But several months have passed since creating my last Style Board and I still long to immerse myself in the fantasy of what could be.  Since we are on the brink of welcoming a New Year, it feels like the perfect opportunity to start anew.

This month's Style Board is inspired by the most wonderful and perplexing question (which I am asked all the time), "If you were getting married again, what would you do?".  Well...when my husband and I were married six years ago, we had a small destination wedding in Cancun, surrounded by a handful of loving family and friends.  Our wedding will always hold a special place in our hearts because it is our personal history and will always be a part of us.  But...

If we had our wedding to do again, I am certain we would celebrate our Midwest roots and our love of all things Ohio.  We would worry less and breathe deeper.  We would let our family and friends participate in any way they chose and we would feel comfortable being our everyday selves.  We would revel in long chats over local food and wine. We would encourage dancing and drinking, storytelling and impromptu readings from our favorite books.  We would insist that if anyone grew too tired or too full or entirely too drunk, they should rest under a quilt on a sleeping porch.  We would discuss at length our past and our future.  We would conjure the presence of people who are no longer with us through loving, rowdy, familiar and unexpected stories of our cherished times with them.  We would wander and lay down in the grass.  We would take note of the changing position of the sun and welcome the darkening sky.  At dusk some of us would gravitate toward the hissing bonfire and some would continue sitting at tables under glowing lanterns, hung from the limbs of trees.  Each of us would fluctuate among separation and togetherness, but we would always be bonded through our intimate knowledge of, and enduring love for, each other.  

In 1944 Vincente Minnelli debuted Meet Me in St. Louis, a charming turn of the century spectacle of ruffles, lace, wistfulness, opulence, hope, marriage, love and family.  This enchanting gem of a musical sweeps you away from modern life, to revel in a ruffled fantasy of beautiful, simpler times.  At the heart of the movie pulses the promise of the upcoming 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, which was an elaborate, utopian celebration of a glorious past and a hopeful glimpse into the possibilities of the future.  Just like a wedding...