Biggest 2024 Wedding Trends to Look Out For Right Now [Tips & Guide]

Wedding trends come and go, but there are many staples that have remained throughout the years. I love watching my couples pick and choose between what they consider a tradition and new additions to the wedding day that are personalized to them. Wedding traditions provide a beautiful framework for couples to work within and without and at times completely ignore! Read through these 2024 wedding trends and pick and choose which ones best fit the two of you!

2024 Wedding Trends That Personalize Your Day

Involve Close Friends & Family

This pulls more from wedding traditions than wedding trends for 2024, but it doesn’t mean that it can’t be done in new ways:

• Have a friend or family member officiate the wedding: outside of the wedding party, there can be limited ways to include family in the day, especially when you want them to just enjoy the party! Having someone close to you as your marriage officiant certainly personalizes the experience! It’s funny how we leave one of the most intimate moments of the day to complete strangers when we can instead include someone close to us who would love to be involved. You can even have a full religious ceremony at an elopement! 
• Take family and friends on a destination wedding adventure: destination weddings are a great way to turn your entire wedding experience into a vacation for everyone! Opting for a smaller wedding and having your destination double as your honeymoon spot opens the door to so many opportunities! You could rent a villa in Spain rather than a local DC wedding venue. It’s much easier to convince your family that you’re going to elope when you invite them to join you! 

• Incorporate your pets into the day: I can never say enough about how valuable it is to include your furry friends as part of the entire process from the engagement session to the wedding day. If you consider them part of the family (which they are!) then they should be there for one of your most important days!

Take the Time for Private Moments

Adding new elements to the day that allow for the two of you to get away and enjoy the moment are one of those 2024 wedding trends that I love to support! There are many options for what these private moments can look like on the wedding day:

• First Look followed by Private Personalized Vows while still exchanging wedding traditional vows during the ceremony. This allows you to share these love letters with one another without an audience. 
• Reception Room Reveal: you can preview the beautiful design of the room before it’s filled up with guests and also take a moment to eat dinner or a snack!
• Sunset Photo Session: usually during cocktail hour or sneaking away for a bit during the reception while guests are eating.
• Private Last Dance on an empty dance floor as guests prepare for the exit. 
• Day-Before or Day-After Photos.
• Brides can gift their partner a bridal boudoir session.

Making Memorable Guest Experiences

1. Guest Welcome: offer guests hors d’oeuvres and cocktails or champagne as they arrive rather than doing a cocktail hour in between the ceremony and reception. This couple offered guests champagne as they entered the wedding venue and enjoyed views of the Washington Monument. 

1. Evolution of the Guest Book:

• Audio Guest Book: guests leave voicemails for the couple on a vintage phone.
• Photo Book of Engagement Photos guests can sign throughout or Polaroids guests take and then sign beside their photo in a guest book.
• Wooden Sign with your name or other pieces of decor that guests can sign.

3. Food: tasting bar during cocktail hour, food machines like cotton candy or popcorn for reception snacks, a dessert food truck or even catering by McDonald’s! 
4. Games: croquet, badminton, Jumbo Jenga, Giant Connect Four, wedding-themed piñata, giant crossword puzzle about the couple, or even customized games.

3. Photos: digital/GIF Photo Booths rather than print, disposable or Polaroid cameras. 
4. Entertainment: caricaturist (budget-friendly alternative to a live wedding painter), magician, speciality musician like bagpipes or steel drums players or pulling guests into bringing their own instruments!

3. Permanent Wedding Favors: according to The Knot: “Couples are treating guests to bracelets that are welded onto wrists, in addition to tattoos and piercing stations. Yep, you read right. Too avant garde for your taste? Hire an on-site engraver to personalize candles for your guests or an embosser to add initials to leather bound journals.”
4. Interactive Wedding Favors: cigar rolling station, flower cart for bouquet-building. A centerpiece or other part of the decor they can take home such as macaroon cookies, almonds or a plant. Providing blankets or sherpa jackets for colder weddings that they can keep. 
5. Creative Seating Charts that also serve as favors: letter wall with personal letters to guests, limoncello shots (guests participate in a group toast).

2024 Wedding Trends That Break Traditions

You can choose to completely reboot traditions and create some new ones of your own! Here are some 2024 wedding trends that totally flip the script!

Wedding Reception Dress

A dress change happens usually during the last hour or so of dancing or after the formal dances. Wedding reception dresses for the bride offer so many benefits:

1. The best of both worlds: the fancy dress and a super fun one for dancing and more free movement. 
2. Variety in your photos since both dresses can be their own statement piece and can shift the tone from the formality of the ceremony.
3. No one is stepping on your bustle! I’ve had many brides experience this and have the bustle string break. You can pin it, but that can be annoying.
4. There’s also the latest trend of dress separates! According to The Knot, “The bridal fashion runways were full of skirts and tops and dresses with removable layers, making this one of our favorite fashion trends for 2024. Double looks without having to waste precious wedding day minutes changing looks.” 
5. Dress warmer for when the sun goes down or cooler for a hot dance floor.

There are so many different ways to incorporate a wedding reception dress change:

• Mini dresses, white jumpsuits, or it can still be long and elegant but flexible for dancing. 
• Non-white wedding dresses.
• Accessory Change: jacket, fur or shoes.
• Put your hair up or down depending upon what was done for the ceremony.

Grand Entrances & Exits

Sparklers aren’t completely out but they aren’t always the safest, especially after guests have been drinking. Here are some memorable entrance and exit ideas:

• Ceremony Processional: bride walks solo, couple walks together, or both parents walk the bride. 
• Ceremony Exit: flower petals, rice, bubbles or streamers.
• Last Dance where everyone surrounds the couple on the dance floor.

• Reception Exit: bubbles, glow sticks, fiber optic wands, cold fireworks, glowing balloons, and laser shows set to music (best for indoors).

Replacing the Old with the New 2024 Wedding Trends

1. No bouquet or garter tosses.
2. Leaving the kids at home: works better to bring them along when you have activities/games for the kids or when in a private residence.

1. Fake Wedding Cake: made of faux layers for display usually with one slice to cut and a sheet cake, cupcakes, or mini personalized pies for guests. When having a real cake, couples are going for textured cakes with pleats, lace, stenciled patterns, ruffles, flowers or even alternate colors like a black cake.

1. Bright Wedding Colors: brighter more vibrant colors from dresses to wedding reception decorations add a feeling of fun to the day! This can include projections on the floor, a neon sign of your last name or another saying, or using Pantone’s color of the year.
2. Creative Table Numbers: dogs, your ages over the years with corresponding photos, symbols in a different language, photos or postcards from your travels or your favorite National Parks. Put on the back of each table number: “4 Things This Table Has in Common” with categories per table as conversation starters.

More 2024 Wedding Trends Resources

1. BRIDES: Pinterest Shares Their Top Wedding Trend Predictions for 2024
2. The Knot: The Top Wedding Trends of 2024
3. VOGUE: The Wedding Trends That Are In–And Out–For 2024

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