Themes & Ideas to Inspire Your Wedding
Whether you’re planning an intimate event with a handful of your closest friends and family or something grand with hundreds of guests, the hardest thing about wedding planning is figuring out where to start. Most couples struggle to find a wedding theme that fits their personalities, budget, and vision. Without any wedding themes or ideas, you won’t know how to approach your wedding vendors, including the florist, the cake maker, the wedding dress designer, and so on.
Read on as we share some popular wedding themes and ideas to inspire you to design your own unique event.
Popular Wedding Theme Ideas
Boho-Chic Wedding
Bohemian weddings have a very relaxed vibe with semi-formal to casual dress codes, and minimal décor, and give off the feeling of a very enjoyable garden party. With just a few vibrant colors and flavor-packed food, bohemian weddings allow you to be as creative as you want. Nothing really needs to match, so the chairs can be different, the flowers can include vibrant wildflowers, and the bride can express her real style by possibly skipping the idea of a white wedding dress as well!
Season & Location: Boho weddings usually happen in lush, green gardens or even on farmland and the ideal time is during the cool summer or autumn, which has its own charm.
Black and White Wedding
While themed weddings are becoming popular, there are still many people who go for the olds school format of a black-tie event with the bride in a flowing white gown, starched white linens on every table with matching chairs, pastel floral arrangements, and elegant meals and hors d’oeuvres.
Season & Location: Classic weddings can happen any time of the year and may be hosted in a ballroom complete with a crystal chandelier or on a manicured lawn with pristine seating arrangements and décor.
Wild, Wild West Wedding
If you and your partner share a love of horses, you can have a country-style wedding complete with haystacks, cowboy hats, and a country-themed dress code for all your guests. A hearty meal (complete with Crisco chicken) and square dancing will add the perfect finishing touch to your special day.
Season & Location: Country West weddings are best suited for barnyards, farmhouses, and even vintage gardens. Summer is the best time to enjoy a country-themed wedding under the stars.
Craft Wedding
If you’re a professional DIYer and love adding your own personal touch to everything, then a craft wedding just might be what you’re looking for! From handwritten invites to homemade decorations and possibly even baking your own cake, every part of your wedding will have you written all over it.
You can even work with your wedding vendors to add a DIY craft touch to the entire event. For instance, your caterer can set up a make-your-own sundae bar for your guests and you can even have a photo booth with fun props.
Season & Location: Depending on the type of DIY you’re interested in, you can have your event indoors or outdoors, but gardens and open-air venues provide a blank canvas for you to paint your ideas on.
Minimalist Chic Wedding
Everything from modern art to interior décor has become about straight lines, solid colors, and keeping it simple and understated. If you’re a fan of this minimalist look, you can create your own vogue wedding. The entire event will follow a fixed color scheme, from your invites to your place cards to wedding giveaways. Even the cake will be of the same color to stay consistent with your theme.
Season & Location: Modern weddings allow you to go in different directions. On the one hand, you can have a frosty outdoor wedding where the snow will already take care of the monochrome, minimalist effect for you. On the other hand, an indoor space like an empty banquet hall, a rustic event room, or something similar will work any time of the year.
Hollywood Wedding
If you’re one of those people who look at Met Gala outfits every year and enjoy a good film and a glamorous party, then that’s the way to go. It’s all sparkles, bold makeup, movie reels, faux fur, paparazzi-style wedding photographers, Oscar-shaped wedding giveaways, and more.
Season & Location: Glamour weddings can happen at any time of the year and are best suited for indoor ballrooms and vintage estates.
Retro Wedding
From Gone with the Wind to The Great Gatsby, these iconic classics have opened up to us a world of elaborate dresses, fun jewelry ideas, interesting dances, and more. Work with a wedding decorator to select décor items that are cohesive with your vintage theme. You can take it to the next level by wearing a wedding dress that has been passed along in your family among previous generations!
Season & Location: Depending on the era you select for your back-in-time wedding, you can host an outdoor wedding in the summer or an indoor affair in an elegant ballroom in the winter.
Goth Wedding
Let’s face it, there will always be many of us who hold a strange fascination towards fictional supernatural creatures like vampires with their bright red lips and fangs, ghosts floating in the sky, and wizards with their crooked wands and pointy hats. Bring your favorite gothic fantasies to life by having your guests dress up in costume, hosting your wedding in the dark of night, and serving up ghoulish, cobweb-covered treats.
Season & Location: Our first choice would obviously be to recommend a wedding close to Halloween, but you can have a gothic wedding any time of the year as long as you can find a dimly lit space to create a spooky aura, perfect for the joining of two spirits!
Ocean Wedding
There’s nothing like the sound of waves crashing against the shore and dipping your feet in the shallow edge of the water. Take your love for the ocean by having a water-themed wedding complete with a seafood menu, anchor-shaped wedding invites, and more.
Season & Location: Look for a venue with a river, a lake, or some sort of water feature to help you stick to your theme. Oceanic weddings are suited for all seasons.
Natural Wedding
You don’t have to do something wild on your wedding day. Even just selecting a stunning venue such as a Vintage Tuscan Manor or the rolling green grounds of a resort set the stage for a wonderful event. All you need now is just some good food, a dress, and some people to share your wedding joy with.
Season & Location: If you and your partner have a season you’re particularly fond of, select that (the same goes for the venue). Just remember, if it's the rainy season, let your guests know that they’ll need to keep their umbrellas handy.
Feeling Inspired Yet?
From Disney princess weddings to formal affairs with guests in crisp shirts and flowing ball gowns, wedding ideas are endless. It all comes down to the theme that you like and the vision that you have in mind. Here are some questions you should ask yourself when creating a wedding idea board:
- Indoor or outdoor wedding?
- Summer or winter wedding?
- Casual or formal wedding?
- Small, fancy meals, or giant turkey legs like the ones found at Disneyland?
- Nighttime or daytime wedding?
Most importantly: how much can you spend on your wedding? Your budget can help you decide how much you can spend on each element of the wedding, including invites, décor, flowers, the dress, party favors, and more.
If you’re still stuck for inspiration, head on to 360SiteVisit where you can take entire virtual tours of multiple wedding venues in New Jersey to find a place you like, whether it’s an indoor ballroom or a manor with both an indoor and an outdoor option.
Once you find a venue you like, 360SiteVisit can also connect you to vendors for food, floral arrangements, and more to help you fulfill your wedding vision.
Just sit back on your couch with a cup of coffee and your partner next to you and tour multiple wedding venues within minutes!
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