Do you want to stretch the limits and have a wedding like none other, at least like none other you've ever attended? Trying something new is key, but also something that's intrinsically you. The first step is to define who you are as a couple. Investigate your likes and dislikes. Ask yourselves: What do we enjoy doing in our spare time? What is our favorite season? Favorite artists, movies, and music? Favorite era? Once you've unveiled your personal style, you're ready to take the second step and start developing a wedding-day theme.

Your theme doesn't have to be something so complex as a Hawaiian bash, replete with a roast pig, leis, and grass skirts, but it should incorporate some symbol—whether a color, a flower, or even an historical event. Yours could be pink roses, a favorite wine, or a wintry mix of comfort foods and with details like snowflake invitations. These personal touches are the thread that sews the entire wedding day together. Here are some of our favorite ways to craft a creative, one-of-a-kind celebration.

• Finding a common chord to play through all the elements of your wedding—from your paper products to your party—will help you put on a production that's truly unforgettable. Try a masquerade ball! Infuse your theme from the reception venue (a fancy ballroom or an old theater) to what to wear (have guests come in costumes to suit the theme, such as butterflies and peacocks for a nature-themed event) to the favors (give guests handmade masks) to the honeymoon (go to Venice during Carnevale).

• Locating the right spot to host your fun, formal affair is your greatest challenge. Having the wedding in a hotel ballroom will lend a very different tone than having it in an old weathered barn on your grandfather's farm. Locate a distinctive venue—scout out old nightclubs, movie theaters, city roof gardens, hip restaurants, art galleries, or historic mansions, to name a few. If finding a unique site does not fit your fancy, then transform the space you choose into something different by setting up screens to create different environments for dinner and dancing.

• Have a photo booth set up at the site so that your friends and family can take their own pictures or group shots. The results are a little like a home video without sound. Whether you pose properly, make funny faces, or try your best Rockette kick line, you'll be caught on tape showing your true colors. Compiled into a visual wedding-day guest book, these are photographs that will be treasured by brides and grooms for years to come.

• The vibe of every wedding is dictated by the decor. If you desire a truly romantic event, you might adorn your space with dozens of red roses and golden ornamentation. For casual elegance, candles set afloat in pools, flowers floating in fish bowls, and a string quartet playing love ballads will whisper wonderment.

• Going retro—using all-white decor—is back in style. As many people as there are looking for hot, hip new colors and coordination there are those craving the ultra-traditional. Talk to your florist about mixing shades of whites for the bouquets. Creamy ivory roses mixed with stark white stephanotis will look marvelous. Centerpieces that feature white French tulips bursting out of white hydrangea clusters will be eye-catching. Use all-white linens or linens that mix varied shades of white—ivory cloths with white overlays, for example. Have a white wedding cake with white rolled fondant frosting, waiters dressed in tuxedos with white jackets (hello, James Bond), and, of course, a white limousine.

• Develop a visually stunning scene using all one color, whether blue, violet, or kiwi green. Monochromatic does not equal monotony. Consider setting up different sizes and shapes of tables (circular, square, rectangular) and use different textures or designs for the fabrics (pin-stripe fabrics on round tables and tiny polka-dot covers on square ones). Although your color palette will remain the same, each tabletop will render a distinct personality.

• Who says the tables must sport uniform arrangements? Think of your spread of tables as a garden, each row or corner with its own identity. Place some of your chosen blooms in tall opaque vases, float other flowers in short bowls, use others in clear vases filled with rocks and water. Accent the shorter centerpieces with tall taper candles and the taller ones with shorter votives or tea lights.

• If you've chosen a huge reception space to accommodate your massive family, make it more intimate by adding lounge furniture. If you can't bring in couches and plush chairs to create a sitting area, try seating only four people to a table instead of eight to ten, or drape the walls and ceilings with rich velvety fabrics to close in the space.

• Lighting is a key (and usually forgotten) element. Okay, so there's always candlelight or chandeliers or strung twinkle lights. But before you take an easy way out, ask if your venue has another form of lighting and use it! Find out if your venue can provide cool effects like gobo lighting to create shapes with light. Yes, it could border on cheesy if you overuse it, but shining intertwining hearts on the marble floor for the first dance or initialing the white walls with your new monogram during the cake cutting might evoke dreamy emotions.

• Give your guests a taste of the town and serve something regional. We know a bride who had a popular East Coast seafood soup poured at each place setting, as guests arrived in the tent. Another bride we know served sour-cream cornbread with mayhaw jelly, a local southern favorite. If you're marrying in a city that brews its own beer, be sure to stock the bar with it or with another signature drink from the area.

• Espresso bars are hot and a good accessory to dessert—especially if you serve your espresso with cordials. These bars also provide a good jolt toward end of the night as the party winds down and the yawns start pouring in; plus, lattes and cappuccinos served on dainty china can be very sexy drinks.

• Have a dessert buffet. Bring in 20 different sweets like chocolate-covered strawberries, banana fosters, and creme brulee. Talk to your caterer for clever ways to decorate tables and present mini desserts. Your family can join in the fun—ask your best friend's mother to make her famous brownies or your aunt to make those pecan delights. A dessert buffet encourages mingling and ensures getting people off their seats and closer to the dance floor. If you still can't pass on the multi-tiered confection, box the individual cake slices and distribute as favors.

• Book professional entertainers. An a cappella group or singing waiters during cocktail hour will turn on the charm. Hire a group of dancers—choose from belly to Irish jig to salsa dancers—who perform during courses, getting guests in the groove (and, at the very least, providing a few quick tips for those with two left feet). Bring in some different music for an hour or so, perhaps a steel drum band, a barbershop quartet, or a mariachi band. We know a couple that hired a "Melon Head"—a man whose head made a guest appearance in a bowl of fruit at the hors d'oeuvres table. (Yes, it was a real man's head made to look like a melon.) He would poke his head through the table and surprise guests as they reached for fruits by starting silly conversations with them—a little scary but also a lot of laughs, and good for all ages.

• Instead of having all your guests seated and waiting for your big entrance, position yourselves in the middle of the room in the midst of your first dance (literally—you can add dry ice for extra effect and drama). That way, as guests enter the reception space, they are greeted by you. Plus, it gives you a few minutes to be alone and you don't have to deal with the embarrassment of hundreds of camera flashes going off in your face.

• Add a cigar roller to your reception. A master cigar roller who demonstrates the art of cigar rolling will prove to be a big hit. You might ask him to display and hand out an array of rare or limited-edition cigars for guests to enjoy after dinner—do this in conjunction with a lounging area or around a martini or vodka bar for added chic.

• Invest in an artist who will draw in pastels, or paint in watercolors, the reception as it unfolds. This can be a great gift for the bride and groom, but it's also some quiet entertainment for guests and especially good for weddings set in great scenery—creating a collage of events like guests dancing outdoors on the sand and the best man's toast by the water at a beachside bash.

_{Contributors: Melissa Paul of Melissa Paul, Ltd., in Philadelphia; Laura Holycross of Distinctive Events, Inc. in Los Angeles; Linda Howard of Linda Howard's Sensational Celebrations in Los Angeles; Amy Mancuso of Distinctive Weddings in Phoenix; Heather Snively of Just Marry! in Winter Park, FL}

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