How to Easily Incorporate Top 2017 Wedding Trends into Your Big Day
By: Russell Pinto Jr
If you want your wedding to be on-trend and cutting edge, consider these 3 simple ways to incorporate some of the top 2017 wedding trends into your Big Day.
1) Family-Style Dinner
Why give your guests options when they can have it all? More and more couples are leaning towards a family-style dinner service, which is fancier than a buffet but not as formal as sit-down service. This gives guests more control over their dining experience, as they will get offered a myriad of options and can decide what and how much goes onto their plate. As a guest, it doesn’t get much better than that!
This style of service is a great ice breaker as it inherently encourages a sense of comradery with the guests as they taste and discuss the plates being passed around the table. The relaxed atmosphere will also make your guests feel more at home and comfortable when interacting with people they are not familiar with.
Although this type of service is usually more successful for smaller, more intimate weddings, it could also work well for a large group. This depends on your venue, guest count, and budget, so be sure to consult with your wedding planner or caterer about the possibility of incorporating family-style dinner service or into your reception.
2) Bold Color.
Does bright orange for your fall wedding sound scary? Try pairing it as an accent color with a base soft gray or crisp navy blue and cream for a stylish and timeless color palette. Incorporating a bold accent color against a neutral or monochromatic palette is the hottest design trend of the year. Dare to be bold!
To incorporate this trend in a timeless way, use a base neutral-color palette of creams, grays, natural beige, and blue-browns for the big picture: linens and bridesmaid dresses. Then pick a bold accent color – think deep plum for a winter wedding or sunshine yellow for summer – and use it sparingly in the details. Bouquets, boutonnieres, hair accessories, escort cards, cake décor and signage create great opportunities for adding little splashes of color here and there. Pantone’s Color of the Year, Greenery, is a refreshing and versatile pop of deep lime green perfect for a summer wedding.
3) A Personalized Touch
Many couples struggle to create unique experiences not only for their guests but for themselves as well. We’ve all been to a few weddings that blend into each other in our memory because they are so similar: wedding-factory venue, cookie-cutter menu and impersonal ceremony. Lately the trend has been couples adding personal touches to their big day, and we are going to see a lot more of this in 2017.
You don’t need to commit to a big theme to add little hints of your personality to your wedding. Start by thinking about what is meaningful to you and to your intended as individuals and then also as a couple. Pay homage to these important things that make you unique – your ethnic background, home town, favorite travel destinations, and shared experiences – by incorporating them subtly into your big day. Perhaps your Aunt’s famous apple pie can find a place on the dessert table next to the tiered cake. You can serve hors ‘d’oeuvres of pierogis, empanadas, meatballs, kabobs, latkes or other ethnic treats at cocktail hour.
I recently planned a wedding for a groom from Baltimore and a bride that hailed from Haiti. For their wedding favors, we purchased Haitian coffee, and a sampler pack of the famous Baltimore Berger Cookies and stuffed them into an iconic “I <3 NY” coffee mug. The goal here was to honor their individual pasts, while celebrating their joint life together in NYC.
Tell me how you’re planning to incorporate this year’s trends into your Big Day in the comment section below!