The sentiment and emotion of weddings is something that will never ever change. It’s a day of celebrating love and making a new life-long commitment to your spouse. But, as each year passes, we see some changes in how couples are doing and planning for their wedding days. In general, over the last few years couples getting married seem to be less interested in doing what is expected for their wedding, and more interested in doing what they want to do. Personally, I’m so happy to see this shift because, for a long-time, weddings felt like something couples did to please their families. Nowadays, the emphasis seems to be back on the couple and their relationship, and their friends and family are secondary.
With having the emphasis back on the couple and their priorities for the day, sometimes “untraditional” choices and plans are made. As long as the foundational elements of the wedding are still present (vows to each other and the marriage license signing), there are no rules to how the rest of the days plays out. There are expectations and cultural norms, but it’s been fun to see couples straying away from these norms and doing their wedding in a way that best suits them.
Our 2024 wedding season is just beginning, but we’ve already seen some newer and “untraditional” trends this year that we’ve been loving. We hope that this list will give you some ideas for your upcoming wedding and will also give you reassurance that it’s okay to not do things the traditional way! If you want to stick with tradition, that’s great. But if certain traditions don’t feel like you, change them! That’s something I wish I had heard before I got married, so that’s my biggest piece of advice to you as I write this.
Untraditional Wedding Trend #1: No Bridal Party (or a very small one)
Now, if your first reaction to reading “No Bridal Party” is “WHAT?! WHY!!!”, then ABSOLUTELY you should have a bridal party for your wedding day. For most couples, having a bridal party is something they want to do, and it makes sense for them!
For couples who want to simplify their planning and wedding day, maybe think about the option of skipping the bridal party! We can still get photos of you with all your closest friends if you want to, but you can avoid the pressure of choosing which friends you want standing up with you. You can also avoid the costs associated with paying for your bridal party’s hair/make-up/attire/flowers. And not having a bridal party means we can save about 30-60 minutes on bridal party photos and either spend that time on other photos OR let you mingle and enjoy the day with your guests.
Another popular option that we’ve seen at weddings recently is to just have a maid of honour and a best man! They can either stand up beside you during the ceremony or sit in the front row, but they’ll be the ones to sign as witnesses for your marriage license. This is a good option if you two each just have one sibling or friend that you’d like to stand up with you. :)
Untraditional Wedding Trend #2: Sweetheart Table
Whether or not a couple has a bridal party, we are seeing almost ALL of our couples choose to have a sweetheart table for just the two of them for dinner instead of a long table with all their bridal party sitting with them. I love this idea and I’m so glad this is popular! As great as it would be to sit with all your friends, the wedding day is about you two and I’m sure after the craziness and business of the day, you’ll be happy to sit and talk alone with your new spouse during dinner.
Untraditional Wedding Trend #3: Personal-Size Wedding Cakes
This is a cute trend that we’ve been seeing and loving at weddings recently! Many of our couples in the last year have opted for a smaller, personal-sized wedding cake for them to cut and eat themselves, while planning a different dessert for everyone else.
This is a great option because you two still get to eat the wedding cake that you picked out together (and we get cute photos of you cutting and eating it), but your guests don’t have to wait a long time as the cake gets cut up and served to everyone! The guests’ dessert is usually already plated and ready to go, so that right after the cake cutting the next part of the evening can begin. Having a small cake also saves you so much money on buying a huge, tiered cake if that’s not your thing.
Untraditional Wedding Trend #4: Green Suits
We’ve been really loving the unique suits that our grooms have been wearing in the last year. This year especially; we’ve only shot 3 weddings so far in 2024, but at two of them the grooms were wearing a green suit!!
You can never go wrong with all black, or a classic black and white tux, but a different coloured suit is a cool way to show some personality and add some colour. Green is a great colour to choose because typically the bouquet and the floral arrangements all have green elements, so a green suit ties together with that very well and doesn’t come off as too much colour.
Untraditional Wedding Trend #5: Late Ceremonies
We’ve noticed a shift in the last year that most couples opt for a later ceremony start time, between 3-5pm is common. We rarely see a ceremony start time before 3pm.
You might be thinking, what’s untraditional about starting later? The untraditional part is the schedule of the day! Traditionally, the bride and the groom don’t see each other on the wedding day until the aisle. But with private first looks now being so popular, most couples see each other before their wedding ceremony. And since they’ve seen each other, we can often get most of the photos done BEFORE the ceremony.
This is great for a couple of reasons. For one, your guests don’t have to wait around for hours between the ceremony and reception while you are off taking photos. AND you can enjoy the cocktail hour or whatever you have planned for your guests after the ceremony! If the ceremony is from 4-4:30pm, then you can enjoy cocktail hour from 4:30-5:30, and then the reception would start shortly after that!
I hope you take some fun and unique ideas away from this post! I am in NO WAY saying that wedding traditions are bad and you shouldn’t do any of them. Personally, for our wedding, Linden and I leaned on the traditional side for sure; we didn’t even have a first look until the aisle! BUT, I do wish that someone had sat me down and told me that I don’t have to do it any particular way. Instead of having my friend as my maid of honour, I think I would have actually asked my only brother to be my “man” of honour. And instead of a long dinner table with the bridal party, I would have chosen a sweetheart table that just sat the two of us so we could chat and focus on each other in that moment.
We can’t wait to see the traditional vs. untraditional elements that you decide on for your wedding! If you take anything from this, here is our final piece of advice: do your wedding your way! Whatever that may look like for you. <3
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