So you’ve fixed a date for your big day, you’ve just about recovered from all the screaming, crying and backslapping that followed when you made the big announcement to your family and friends – now the real work starts!
It’s the biggest day of your life, you want to create a day that will last in the memory for as long as your happy union – but before you can really get stuck into the nitty gritty of planning, you need a theme! Well, you better get your skates on, as you’d be surprised how quickly time can fly when you have a wedding to plan. It’s decision time, so here are three trends everyone is talking about for the 2020 wedding season to help kickstart you into action.
The Sustainable Wedding
Yep, you can’t deny that the woke revolution is touching every aspect of our lives, even our wedding plans. With growing concern that it is now or never to avert climate catastrophe and the belated realisation that all that plastic we’ve been using is causing some nasty pollution issues, you may not be able to turn the tide with a sustainable wedding, but you can certainly wear your values on the sleeve of your wedding dress / tux.
So what does a sustainable wedding look like? Well plastic is out, not just in confetti but in decorations, favours, drinks bottles and so on – you might even want to check that the material for your dresses and suits is made from 100% organic material, ethically sourced and perhaps manufactured locally. In the same vein, serving up locally produced, organic food and drink will boost your green credentials, and how about opting for a non-fuel burning form of transport – horse and carriage, anyone?
A particularly lovely idea is to forgo cut flowers for potted plants or even saplings that guests can take home to plant as a momento – that’s your carbon off-setting sorted!
Downsized Weddings
We won’t bring the B-word into discussions about wedding planning, but suffice to say that another of the key issues that has been dominating headlines recently has left a lot of people uncertain what the future holds, economically and politically. And let’s face it, there has already been a fair amount of purse-string-tightening going on.
How much you want to splash out on your big day is of course entirely a matter of personal preference and your own circumstances. But after years of seeing expenditure on weddings spiral upwards, we are starting to see more and more people ask whether it is all really worth it.
Being value-conscious about your wedding doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice any part of having the best day of your life. Some people are naturally drawn to having smaller, more intimate celebrations with the people that really matter to them anyway, in comfortable rather than extravagant surroundings. Weddings with less than 50 guests are becoming increasingly popular, they can save you serious money, and you are still bound to have a fabulous time.
The Grand Banquet
On the flipside to the downsizing trend, there still seems to be plenty of mileage in opting for the statement wedding, the opulent set-piece – the wedding that will look just fabulous on Instagram. Of course, there are lots of ways to do this, but one of the trends getting plenty of column inches on the wedding planning sites is what we might call the Grand Banquet style.
Perhaps inspired by shows and films such as Game of Thrones and the Harry Potter franchise, setting up your reception venue to capture the aesthetic of the formal banquet – complete with big long tables, and the wedding party sat horizontally in plain sight of everyone – is very much en vogue. It is a classical approach well suited to large guest lists, and goes very well with a more extravagant approach to decoration.
Whatever style of wedding you opt for, you will need the right venue. And that’s where The Colony HQ comes into its own – we have spaces to sort all sorts of themes, from small and intimate to the grand and opulent (you can even have your banquet tables out on our beautiful lawns if you like!) Why not get in touch and arrange a visit to come have a look around.