Destination: Wedding
The days are longer, nights are sweeter, and love and celebration are in the air. After the long, cold winter of the pandemic wherein nay a large gathering was in sight, we’ve reached the heady months of spring-into-summer (without mask mandates!).
In other words, wedding season is here and it’s back in a big way. We are ready for it, hunny. Ready to travel, to get down, to mingle, to bask in the glow of (gasp!) social events! Gimme a green wedding, a destination wedding, bar mitzvahs, anniversary parties, your quinceañearas, and all the baptisms. No matter the occasion it feels like the time to celebrate.
Before you go all out, however, let’s remember it’s not 2019 anymore. We lost some years and, in all likelihood, our ability to spot trends and get “with it” has atrophied. If you are planning a 2022 wedding, or, just plan to attend as many as parties possible and dance till dawn, get yourself familiar with what’s in (and out) this wedding season.
All the Wedding Trends We’ve Loved Before
Let’s take a moment to say a respectful farewell and pour some out for a few of the wedding trends that are no longer with us. Bygone trends include the home-crafted décor of twinkle lights, mason jars, chalkboards, and burlap. It seems we’ve had our fill of these rustic touches and are going for a higher level of sophistication.
Treat structures of any sort, be they cookie towers, chocolate fountains, or doughnut walls are also ghosts of wedding trends past. Cakes are back, in a variety of sizes, flavors, and designs.
Thank all things holy zoom weddings are on the outs as well, as are bridal parties with benches so deep they make NFL teams look modest in size. A lot has changed in the past few years and we like where things are headed!
Wedding Trends to Watch: Sustainable Weddings
Your love for each other is so big that you want to share it with everyone, including the planet! Sustainable weddings, or green weddings, are on point for 2022 wedding trends because let’s face it, anything but eco-friendly is so 2018. In fact, we’d wager to say green weddings are not simply a trend but an increasing expectation. Trashing the planet for a party is uncouth. Showing you are about the green details and wanting the children who will spring forth from your love to live in a healthy world is all the rage.
Embrace this wedding trend by forgoing a series of printed invitations for digital, offering compost options for all party byproducts, and ordering local flowers that are in season. It’s about cutting down the overall carbon footprint of your day and sharing your environmental stewardship with guests. Bonus: many of the things that make a wedding green also make it economical. Score!
Wedding Trends to Watch: Breaking Tradition
The coolest weddings, and the most fun and memorable, are the weddings that truly showcased the couple’s style, preferences and personality. One of the best wedding trends of 2022 is the comfort couples feel in breaking tradition and embracing personal touches. A few examples of what this means include forgoing the traditional dinner options like fish or chicken and having tacos, pizza, or sushi, and saying sayonara to traditional bridal white in favor of bright and bold colors.
From the time of day to the type of entertainment, tradition is not the be-all it once was. If you are planning your wedding this year, consider this the extra nudge you need to shirk tradition and showcase who you are as a couple.
Wedding Trends to Watch: Microweddings
While your love is big, your wedding can be a small, intimate affair. Microweddings are just what they sound like: gatherings including anywhere from a handful to a few dozen guests. Microweddings are budget-friendly and also give you a chance to really connect and visit with your guests. They can give you all the feels and features of a larger wedding just on a more manageable scale.
If you’ve entertained the idea of an elopement but don’t want to miss out on sharing your big day with a few cherished friends and family members, a microwedding may be right up your aisle…er, alley.
Call it the renewed allure of travel or the desire to escape surroundings that have become too familiar in the past few years. Whatever the reason, destination weddings are all the rage in 2022. Beautiful places both far away and off the beaten path are big hits, allowing guests to experience a new place while celebrating your nuptials.
Cap Cana in the Dominican Republic, Ensenada, Mexico, and Xcaret, a subregion of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, are all great bets for a tropical destination wedding. If a destination wedding is your plan for 2022, be sure to incorporate some travel flexibility given the tumult of the past few years, and expect more people to RSVP with an enthusiastic yes. We’ve been waiting for this, after all!
Wedding Trends to Watch: High Sophistication
Last but not least, highly formal and sophisticated weddings are a 2022 wedding trend. Chalk it up to years of sweatpants and bad haircuts, we’re ready to get out and get glam! While incorporating many of the elements of the trends listed above, weddings featuring high sophistication may require black tie attire from guests and an overall upscale vibe, featuring decadent food, incredible entertainment, and an overall Gilded Age throwback feel.
Finally, when it comes to your wedding, do what makes you happy. If you stick to your gut, you can’t go wrong. And if that fails you, just remember, you are all good if you stay away from the 3 Cs: the chicken dance, a chocolate fountain, and clutter.
No one would think you were even a tad weird if you’ve been accumulating wedding décor, inspiration, and centerpieces over the past few years while waiting for your big day. But do yourself a favor and do a round of hard edits. If you’re having trouble making decisions, get yourself a storage unit as you review. That means nothing has to go, it just has to go elsewhere for the time being as you get back to reconciling your wedding vision with our brave new 2022 world.
