Weddings are getting more imaginative by the minute. Saying “I do” on a holiday or creating a theme wedding are popular trends. A wedding organized around a theme can be as creative and over-the-top as you choose, incorporating decorations, foods, costumes, music, and other accents related to the theme. Or the theme can be woven in more subtly, as a common thread that is carried throughout the event. Possible themes include a time period, a season, a color, a dance style, or the couple’s favorite hobby or pastime.
If you two would like to have a wedding with some off-beat or ultra-creative twists, the following ideas may both inspire you and demonstrate that your options for having a unique wedding are truly limitless. Many second-wedding brides and grooms are particularly interested in exploring these alternative trends, since they have already experienced a traditional wedding. Have fun!
Holidays are popular dates to get married. It’s often easier for your guests to take off work at these times, and they make for even more festive celebrations.
Getting married on a holiday assures you that your future anniversaries will not be forgotten!
Be aware that holidays can pose problems for guests who have their own annual tradition of celebrating with family or friends. Some guests may not be able to attend your wedding because of these limitations. On the other hand, a holiday wedding may be preferable if you are having a smaller event or want to limit the number of people who attend.
Holidays on which many couples get married are Labor Day weekend, Memorial Day weekend, and Fourth of July weekend. This list is not all inclusive, however. More and more couples are choosing New Year’s Eve, Valentine’s Day, Christmas, Thanksgiving, or Halloween as festive alternatives.
A New Year’s Eve wedding might include noise-makers or a fireworks display, and can even be timed to have a countdown to your final kiss or “I do” at midnight. Guests can also come in masquerade or wear black tie to a New Year’s Eve wedding.
Valentine’s Day weddings offer the option to indulge in romantic touches: red and white roses, sexier bridesmaid dresses, hearts galore, cupids, and other romance-related items.
Halloween weddings may include guests arriving in costume, haunted houses, and creative centerpieces complete with dried ice, spider webs, ghoulish music, and trick-or-treating for party favors. The couple can come as Frankenstein and his bride or as members of the Addams Family. “The Monster Mash” and “Thriller” are popular tunes to play at the reception, and a pumpkin-pie wedding cake could be fun, too.
For a Renaissance/courtly wedding, invitations are sent on scrolls and the groom arrives as a knight in shining armor atop a horse. Entertainment can include a jester and court dancers, and the setting could be a castle, château, or ballroom decorated like an Old English inn.
At a Roaring ’20s wedding, guests come in costume, members of the wedding party dress as flappers or men of the mob, the DJ teaches guests the Charleston, and the newlyweds drive off in an antique car.
In a ’50s theme wedding, female attendants wear bobby socks and poodle skirts and male attendants sport letterman sweaters or leather jackets. A milkshake bar or soda fountain, Elvis and sock hop music or a jukebox, and ’50s memorabilia can add to the ambiance. Serve food that you would find at a diner, such as burgers, fries, and egg creams.
A disco/’70s-era wedding can be fun (if you have the guts!). The groom and groomsmen could wear ruffled shirts and polyester tuxedoes and the bridal party could dress in platform shoes, tube tops, and bell bottoms. Add a disco ball and colored lights, Saturday Night Fever music, and Afros and big feathered hairdos.
Other time-period themes include medieval, colonial, or caveman.
For a nautical theme wedding, invitations can be designed to resemble tickets for a cruise or boat ride. The bride and groom can dress as the captain and first mate, while their attendants can be pirates, sailors, or the crew. Seafood and sushi would be fun fare to serve, with centerpieces of live goldfish, floating toy boats, starfish, or shells. Instead of numbers, table assignments could use shipyard or seafaring terms such as port, starboard, tack, jibe, rudder, or compass.
Luau, Hawaiian, or island theme weddings have become popular, too. Guests are welcomed with leis. Hula skirts and Hawaiian shirts are the attendants’ garb. The ambiance is enhanced with Hawaiian music, foods, and entertainment, tiki torches, and table assignments that use the names of islands or exotic plants. For the centerpieces, consider either clear bowls with floating tropical flowers, candles, seashells, and sand, or fishbowls filled with colored coral and goldfish. Fun wedding favors could be shell-shaped chocolates or seashells painted with the couple’s names and wedding date.
A movie, television, or entertainment theme wedding could require guests to come dressed in the spirit of the couple’s favorite TV show or film such as The Brady Bunch, Star Wars, or a classic movie. Invitations designed to resemble a movie placard, playbill, or tickets to a show are a fun touch. Theme music and food from the TV show or film can add to the ambiance, and fun memorabilia from it can decorate the space. Party favors such as chocolates shaped like televisions or director’s megaphones are also unique.
Sports theme weddings can be set at a sports arena, baseball stadium, racetrack, or football field. The bride can throw the first pitch or the groom can literally kick off the ceremony. One couple walked through an archway of attendants holding up baseball bats. Peanuts and popcorn can be served during the ceremony, and baseball hats printed with the couple’s names and wedding date can be clever favors.
Extreme weddings are also becoming a trend. Couples have exchanged vows on roller coasters, atop observation platforms at national monuments, while bungee jumping or sky diving, in airplanes or hot-air balloons, underwater while clad in scuba gear, and even on motorcycles with their Harley Davidson buddies. No idea is impossible or too wild.
Eco-weddings, or environmentally friendly weddings, are often held outdoors, under natural light, with energy and conservation in mind. All aspects of these events are “green,” from the birdseed thrown at the end of the ceremony to the organic foods served at the reception.
Mystery weddings invite guests to a murder mystery event, during which games are played that culminate in a wedding. Often the actual wedding is a surprise to the invited guests!
Surprise weddings invite guests to an event that eventually becomes a wedding. Family reunions or holidays are good occasions for these.
Walt Disney World weddings are true fairytale weddings that can be planned with any Disney theme possibility imaginable. Mickey and Minnie can visit or serve as officiants; the bride can dress as Cinderella and be chauffeured to the ball to meet her handsome prince in a pumpkin-shaped horse-drawn carriage; couples can even exchange vows on selected Magic Kingdom rides. Contact Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, directly for more information.
Las Vegas isn’t just a place for spur-of-the-moment elopements anymore. Every theme hotel offers unique packages, from the traditional to the adventurous. Say “I do” atop a replica of the Eiffel Tower (it is much cheaper than flying to Paris!), aboard a pirate ship at Treasure Island, on a gondola at the Venetian, in a Renaissance ceremony at the Excalibur, in a replica of Elvis’s Graceland Chapel with an Elvis impersonator as your minister, or in many other uniquely Vegas ways! Contact hotels directly or the Las Vegas Tourism Office for more information.
For the ultimate wedding thrill-seekers only: Say “I do” on the world’s highest roller coaster, atop the Stratosphere tower in Las Vegas. If you two want your relationship to reach new heights, why not get hitched on the highest point in the western United States?