2010 Wedding Trends

To highlight our newest advertisement on The Knot.com and bring in the New Year, here are some of the Knot's top 2010 Wedding trends.

Trend 1: Retro-Chic Weddings
Retro-style weddings -- at a hotel, in your parents’ backyard, or even at a restaurant -- are huge right now, and we’ll continue to see a lot of the style in 2010. It’s really no wonder: A wedding filled with vintage details, whether from the 1950s, ’60s, or even ’70s, can make for a meaningful heirloom-filled, back-in-the-day vibe, and the decor options are limitless. Use a turquoise-and-raspberry color combo, get milk-glass cake stands for your dessert table, dress the tables with pretty eyelet runners, and ask your florist to arrange your centerpieces in small porcelain vases or silver pitchers. Even your menu options can get in on the action with pigs in blankets and punch (served up in glass punch glasses, of course) at the cocktail hour.

Trend 2: Dinner-Focused Receptions
Say good-bye to informal buffet lines and light hors d’oeuvres stations and welcome back the sit-down reception dinner. Think of it as a re-creation of a dinner party in your own home: lots of food and a comfortable setting are both key. To achieve this level of comfort, order starter plates to get guests munching and chatting from the get-go and choose a dinner menu of the meat-and-potatoes variety. Have the meal served family-style so that all the food, wine, and iced tea or lemonade is set in the middle of the table for guests to help themselves, just like they’d do at their own homes. Do it this way and you’ll encourage conversation and create a more intimate atmosphere.

Trend 3: Innovative Ceremony Setups
This year, it's really all about comfort, so whether your ceremony takes place in a church, at a farm, or in a ballroom, consider adding elements that make your guests feel right at home. Skip the common aisle-down-the-middle arrangement and create a living-room vibe using a mix of couches and chairs, replace all those chairs with hay bales covered with quilts, or even spread blankets on the ground right in front of the altar for the kids. The best part is that anything goes just so long as the details create an intimate feeling. 

 

Trend 4: Shorter, Tea-Length Dresses
From ball gowns to slim, structured sheaths, a shorter-than-floor-length style will make a huge resurgence on ceremony aisles this year. And you don’t have to have a casual wedding to pull it off, either -- the key is in the fabric. Find one made with cotton or layers of airy tulle for an outdoor spring or summer wedding, get a silk-satin gown for a more formal wedding, or go for heavy silk with a soft bolero or even an overcoat for a wintertime wedding.

Trend 5: Classic White Wedding Cakes
While dessert tables and candy bars have been popular for the past few years, wedding cakes have made a comeback. But instead of the colorful two-tiered styles we saw in 2009, this year it’s all about the classic white wedding cake. Order a simple, round, three-tiered cake frosted with white buttercream or covered in white fondant and finish it with an antique cake topper (from your parents’ or grandparents’ wedding), a few fresh flowers that match your bouquet, or leave it clear of add-ons for an even simpler look.

CHECK OUT THE REST OF THE 2010 WEDDING TRENDS ON THE KNOT.COM!