Revamping 'Rustic' with Contemporary

I have never been a big fan of the rustic concept. As it tend to incorporate a lot of elements, I feel the rustic concept could be a little too overcrowded. But maybe, that's just because I haven't found the right way to do it in accordance to my minimalistic taste. Rustic itself is defined as relating to the countryside or rural, incorporating a lot of natural and wooden elements. Then, I thought hmm, that's pretty broad, so why not narrow it down? How should we do that? Well, with contemporary of course.

Photo Credit: Helen Rodrigues

I will be stripping down rustic to it's most basic core and pairing it with contemporary to narrow down the concept. This concept would still incorporate natural elements, but instead of the quintessential American Countryside concept, I will be taking inspirations mainly from Scottish and/or English Countryside. Now, you might argue that is an entirely different concept from rustic, but I did say I was going to strip it to its very core. And at the end of the day countryside is still countryside, wherever it may be.

The natural elements I would be focusing on would be stone or rocky textures instead of wooden textures. Because to me, the smoothness of stones and dimensions of rocks gives it a minimalistic feel while still being experimental. The inspo to use stones and rocks comes from Scotland's lakeside and mountainous views. I am also not opposed to the use of hanging vines and foliage as the rustic concept usually tend to use a lot of leaves. We would still do that, just different sorts of leaves. I will be using leaves and occasionally flowers, that are more closely related to minimalism and contemporary. It is after all, modern times.

(Click each picture for source)

Rough edges and handmade paper for the wedding stationery is a staple for the rustic concept, above I have attached a few examples of how we could mix modernism or contemporary with the rustic concept. We could also not totally forgo the wooden accents and use the wooden prints on the wedding stationery. I have been obsessed with risograph printing lately, and I think it would work well in making the wooden print more contemporary.

The whole point of this revamp is, less is always more, even though traditionally with rustic more is more. As long as you incorporate some of the basic foundations of rustic a.k.a countryside, I think it's safe to say you won't be straying too far from it by making it too contemporary. Finally, I have found a rustic concept that suits my modern taste and I did that simply by combining the better parts of it with contemporary. One would argue this isn't rustic at all, but hey! at least it is to me.

I will be ending this blog post with an announcement. I got an actual job as an actual wedding stylist now! yay! Well, junior wedding stylist, but I'm slowly getting there! Couldn't believe I landed my dream job (cue the ugly crying). That being said, I wouldn't be able to update this blog as regularly as I used to as I will be focusing on the job. But, don't worry, I'll be sure to share some tips and tricks that I've learned here with you guys. See ya!