The Biggest Trend in Wedding Planning? Throwing Out the Rulebook.

Transcript of the video

[00:00:00] I’m Calder Clark. I’m a destination wedding designer. I’m based out of Charleston, South Carolina. Here’s what we’re talking about today. What is updated? What is elevated? What makes a wedding feel very right now on point and fresh? Weddings have changed so much over the past 5 to 10 years and then some. Basically, this is not your grandmother’s punchbowl. It’s just not your grandmother’s wedding. It’s not even really your mother’s wedding. And trust me, I am not knocking what those women who came before you did or have done. And there’s so many special memories attached to how it used to be done. So that has its own place and we can celebrate that all day. But listen, we’re living in a modern world, and it’s really cool to see how transformative these experiences have become. They are more experiential, they are more clever and playful and thoughtful. And honestly, the number one thing that we keep hearing from our clients is it’s all about the guest experience. What I think people are looking for is this holistic experience. This thing that at every turn, touches every guest so that there’s a ton of warmth, and hospitality, and graciousness. And as long as you don’t have 700 guests, you know, we can do this. Okay, we can do it for 700 too. But I think that’s what people are really into.

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[00:01:21] What is so defining about an artisanal, curated, elevated wedding today? I can’t believe I’m going to say this. I’m going with chucking etiquette out the window for the most part. There is a place and a time for some Emily Post moments when it comes to stationery and attire and timing. Of course, you know we are master logisticians. I speak for my peers as well. I mean, this is what we’ve spent decades getting really great at and of course at the design too. But I think what’s so fun and playful about weddings nowadays is to turn everything on its ear. Just because someone said you need to throw the bouquet. Of course not. Of course you don’t. And are you over it? I’m over it. It’s fine. I can’t tell you the last time we had someone throw a bouquet. Especially don’t even mention the G word to me. We’re not tossing a garter. We’re not doing it. Okay. So in some sense, just because someone did it 50 years before you, if you don’t love it, great. Be done with it. Let’s move along. We have a lot of clients asking for extended cocktail periods, and I think if done cleverly with a lot of aplomb and finesse, we can definitely have an hour and a half cocktail party. We just have to load them up with great food and great booze and really cool cocktails that are just coming out, you know, from the kitchen, ad nauseam.

[00:02:39] And so I just think, I don’t know, gone are the days of this really perfunctory, performative, exacting timeline to a wedding day and having to do everything just because someone once did. I think that’s really tired. There are so many things we’re seeing. I guess the lowercase t trends that are replacing the bits and bobs you knew of your. Like the garter toss, or having to cut the cake in front of everyone. Very few of our clients really want for someone to MC the cake cutting, which I get. They just don’t feel like it’s all about them and they’re wanting to have this more others focused kind of party. And we love that, and we’re here to help them defend that choice. But on top of that, I think the thing that’s risen to the top is the after party. And I still get so much flak from my dads about this when we’re in early cost projections phases and sort of getting the scope set of these giant projects on which I’m lucky enough to work. They’re like, “What do you mean, an after party?” I’m like, “What do you mean? What do I mean?” Of course, these couples want an after party and it’s going to be a thing. This is not some last 30 minutes, one cold beer, one sad lone disco ball kind of extravaganza. It’s a lot more than that. And I think it’s this, like chance to change the environment, the attire, the vibes, and it’s what everybody wants these days.

[00:04:01] So that’s what I think has replaced a lot of other little things for the past. There is a need to balance the aesthetic with meaning. And I think these weddings have kind of grown into a place where our couples want there to be really deep, rich, layered meaning. And they’re fearful that if they do something too wild, too trendy, too playful, that they might be looking back on their imagery a couple of years from now and go, “Oh my God, why didn’t you stop me?” But I’m actually here to say, you’re going to giggle. You’re going to giggle at the hairdos. Okay, I’m not saying people are wearing beehives, but like, and bouffants. There’s going to be something that 15 or 20 years from now you look at and go, “Oh my God, that was so 2025.” And that’s okay. What’s cool about that is your wedding is going to be a little time capsule moment of your journey as people in a loving relationship, or as people who had this fabulous time one night many years ago. I kind of love that about it. If we’re too careful to anesthetize everything and remove any chance of it being temporal, I think then it’s really clinical. I’m afraid then that something that’s fantastic in 2025, how can it look perfect in 2050? I don’t know, things will have changed so much again.

[00:05:16] I mean, my gosh, robots will be planning our weddings maybe. I’ll be out of a job. I think we don’t have to worry about it so much. We just layer meaning in and make sure that everybody feels a lot of love and a lot of hospitality, and beyond that, be okay and let the chips fall where they may. So we were talking a little bit about layering meaning into a wedding and having it not become so trendy that you kind of want to change everything about it five years, ten years from now when you’re looking back on your photos. And I think there’s so many ways to do that. But something sprung to mind. One way we’ve been doing that is we have an upcoming project where the bride did not get to know her grandmother in law quite like she would have wanted to. But to honor her, where the wedding is taking place at the grandmother’s former estate, we are kind of cultivating and digging for beautiful things that the grandmother loved as well. And my bride is an interior designer and she has incredible style. And she had this idea to kind of go back through the archives of certain textiles that the grandmother loved and bring those in, like bring those to life out of sort of like the Dark Ages.

[00:06:26] We have so many fun things planned for it, but basically, we’re rewarding the careful observer if you’re paying attention. We are not just like slapping linens on tables. We’ve brought this whole, I don’t know, series of beautiful things to life because two women would have loved to be contemporaries and hung out together. And I think there’s something really great about that. The rise of Instagram has sparked a lot of creativity. It’s also created a ton of unrealistic pressure on brides and their grooms and our couples and their families and all of that. And I’ve got a few ideas of how to combat it. So my husband likes to say it’s time to have a 1980s day. So which dates us? Basically, we used to come home from school and watch 3-2-1 Contact, and that was the only show you were allowed to watch. Maybe like a splash of Sesame Street. And that was the, you know, the amount of screens we had in our lives. And so what he means is he wants me to turn it all off and take a deep breath and go needlepoint, or read a coffee table book, or take a great novel, fiction or not, you know, chick lit beach read. It doesn’t matter. Put my feet up on the porch and just be a human for a second. And what he also knows is when I’m feeling really stressed about finding my sort of creative juices for a particular wedding project, that’s what’s going to generate the good stuff.

[00:07:48] It’s not being hung up on what my friends are doing or what all the brides are doing these days. Like, I don’t get inspiration from what’s already been done. That we have gotten caught up in seeing what everybody’s up to and everybody’s highlight reel. And I actually think some of the really good juicy nuggets can come from doing something as simple as asking your mother in law, your soon to be mother in law for her mother’s wedding album, or for her wedding album. And just looking back at how people used to celebrate and trying to kind of harness that really great energy and the sweet little touches and kind of bring that into the modern world. Analog. It’s basically all about analog. We’re seeing such a shift in weddings. They’ve become more experiential and immersive. And I know that sounds a little highbrow. I just mean that this year alone will be in Aspen and Big Sky and the fields of Virginia and kind of all over. And I think what’s happened is people realize like it’s just not a one day affair anymore. So getting people to a great dinner on a Saturday night is just no longer the ask, or like, or the people are looking for more structure. So a Thursday night little shindig with bluegrass and barbecue. Coming out on a Friday and doing like e-bikes through the vineyards of Napa, or fly fishing because we’re in Montana. People are looking to have almost like the best vacation during your wedding that they can have within the confines of still wanting to come celebrate you.

[00:09:17] And I think there is a way to find that happy place, that happy hybrid of give them enough fun things to do with you or without you for the first couple of days. Always make sure they can find a great meal, because no one wants to be stuck in the middle of nowhere without knowing where to get a burger. And then it’s Saturday night and let’s turn it up a notch. I love kind of seeing a crescendo over the weekend until they reach Saturday night, and it’s just the very best that you’ve ever looked or behaved or danced or had fun. And the same for them. Despite how much weddings have changed, especially for my southern families, there’s still this love of like heritage and an heirloom southern moment. Example, you know, burying the bourbon or tussie-mussies, which may fall on deaf ears if you don’t know what that is. Ping me and I’ll tell you. There’s so many cool things that we used to do, or that we still do, that we still want to honor. It’s really just about the people. So, for example, I love that we still carve out time for a mother, if we have our mom, to put a bride in her gown.

[00:10:23] So while we always have like a pressing team or someone there to kind of assist with, like sewing you into the gown or getting you in and out of all these elaborate attire changes, there’s something so sweet about ensuring that the photographer and the videographer are there for this moment when your mom is actually fastening the back of your gown. I had that with my own mom, and I still treasured that picture. I had pearls that I was wearing and this is going to date my wedding, our wedding. And she put a cameo onto my pearls. And we were kind of fussing at each other and you can tell in the pictures, but I love her and she’s no longer with me. And I have this just special five minutes with her before the ceremony that I’ll always be able to look back on because of the imagery. And then alongside of that, we always recommend that our couples take five minutes. This is like one of my top, top tips. This wedding weekend will feel like a whirlwind, and you’ll feel like there’s no way that it’s going to be any longer than about a total hour.

[00:11:17] And I don’t know how to slow that down other than to say that the best advice I ever got my husband and I took, and now I tell my couples, which is during the arc of your wedding evening, no matter what style of dinner you have or whatever you have planned, you have to step away and take five minutes. And you almost have to like you almost need like a me to be like the bulldog who keeps the guests at bay. Because people will try to stop you and get another hug or like a cheek kiss or something. And you’re like, “Hang on, we just need a minute.” And you pull back and get onto the periphery of your party and look back on it, and it will be the sharpest, most acute and beautiful memory you have of the evening. And now I tell my couples, one of the sweet things you can do too is drag mom and dad. So two moms, two dads, and the couple just quietly pulling back and looking back at 2, 3, 400 guests or beyond. And sort of going, “Oh my gosh, we did this. And all these people are here because they love us so much.” And I think that’s quintessentially southern because it’s a celebration of family and heritage and generations, and just seeing a couple of those generations all lined up. If you still have your grandparents drag them to. And I’m talking five minutes, not five hours. Just something, it’s a really sweet moment that I think people are always grateful that they did.

Also see: What Sets a Southern Wedding Apart? A Top Planner Tells All.

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