Top Theme Trends of 2014

Each new year brings with it exciting new wedding trends. Colours change, décor is different, traditions are transformed and there’s a new flavour of wedding favour. Take ideas from the trends that inspire you the most, but be true to your personality and sense of style, to make your wedding authentically yours. Here are the hot trends for weddings in 2014.

Old World Opulence

If you’ve always dreamed of having a glamorous wedding, then this vintage theme is perfect for you. Brides need to channel Old Hollywood and wear beaded, satin dresses, embellished headbands or birdcage veils, long gloves, and hold bouquets with antique brooches. Colours are dominated by neutral shades, like beige, champagne and sand, but the bride can add a touch of eccentricity with a splash of colour. Stick to the rather regal, and popular shades like dazzling blue and radiant orchid, and then add shimmering gold. To keep with the more formal theme, the wedding should take place in a stately venue like an elegant ballroom or an old manor house. Abundance and prosperity take centre stage, so you should liberally decorate your venue with crystals, pearls and feathers, and then add a personal element by using family heirlooms on the tables.

Woodland Wedding

Whether outside or inside, this wedding trend is all about Mother Nature. Getting married in a forest is first prize, otherwise you want a venue with big windows and a magnificent view. Your colour palette is dominated by greens and browns, and you can add a touch of glamour with metallic contrasts. The theme can extend to your invites and stationery, but if you truly want to have a green wedding, you need to print your animal designs on natural fibres or recycled paper. Embrace nature and fill your venue and tables with wild flowers, leaves, bark and terrariums with plants. On the food front, it should be bite size and easy to eat, and your perfect wedding cake is un-iced and naked. For the boho bride, her wedding dress is floor-length, but light and graceful, and a floral crown is an absolute necessity.

POP ART

This is one of the most fun wedding trends for 2014, and it’s up to you to decide just how much colour you want to inject into your day. Modern brides and grooms are taking inspiration from the art world, as they make marriage memories in bold colours and bright dresses. Serve food on cartoon-covered platters, and offer signature cocktails or classic America drinks like mini cokes. There’s a youthful energy in this theme, where you can see the groom in bright socks and a Spiderman buttonhole, the bride in a short dress and bold heels, and the bridesmaids in primary colours and statement jewellery. The Pop Art wedding theme gives you the freedom to mix and match to your heart’s content, and it gives you fun, bright and memorable wedding photos.

High Drama

This visually dramatic trend will ensure that both you and your guests remember this wedding for a long, long time. The venue is one of the most fundamental aspects and it should have the wow factor for its sensational view, historical significance or beautiful architecture. Get married in a theatre or with the city skyline visible through the windows, and remember that bigger is always better. Decorate in excess by having over-sized floral arrangements, huge chandeliers and lavish amounts of draping, ribbons and crystals hanging from high ceilings. The wedding is an escape from reality, which means there’ll always be room for water fountains, ice sculptures and outrageous but impressive, suspended centrepieces. The perfect way to end off your theatrical wedding is with an extravagant firework display.

Geometric

With bright injections of colour, this theme is similar to Pop Art, but it has cleaner, more modern lines. It’s about patterns, and overlapping shapes, and these linear forms influence everything from the stationery, to the origami decorations, and even the geometric engagement ring on the bride’s finger. Serve food on triangular plates, decorate tables with sand art and have works of art as your centrepieces. Get creative with your venue – why not marry in an art gallery or a building with interesting, modern architecture. Match the theme by using bright flowers, in popular colours like cayenne, freesia, dazzling blue and radiant orchid. You can love this trend or hate it, embrace it completely or just adopt a small element, but this rainbow-hued trend is unapologetic and fun, and here to stay.

Grecian

Lucky you if you’re getting married in Santorini, but for the rest of us, we can just salivate and use Greece as inspiration for our wedding. This is an old world theme, but without the fuss, and it can be as subtle as you want it to be. Shades of blue are among the trendy colours for 2014, and this is perfect for Greek-inspired weddings, where you can liven up the blue and white palette with metallic accents. Have a gold cake, hold white orchids and dress your bridesmaids in blue jewellery. This is a strongly feminine trend that puts the bride in a white, timeless Grecian gown, which perfectly shows off her silhouette. Match this classic style by wearing your hair loose and tousled, after all you are hopefully at (or near!) the sea. Embellish your hair with flowers or a crystal headpiece, and embrace the rare opportunity to wear gorgeous sandals, so you can dance on the beach.

Rustic Glam

The barn might be back in 2014, but it’s been given a glamorous transformation. Whether you’re in a beautiful garden, or a candlelit wooden lodge, this theme works inside and out, provided you have plenty of chandeliers! It’s one of the more romantic trends for the year, and that’s because it has a touch of Parisian, Old World charm. Feminine pastels, like soft pinks and creams, are complemented by strings of pearls and crystals, and popular metallic colours add that extra touch of opulence. While the theme has been refined, what remains is contrasting textures; delicate lace against wooden walls, and heavy silver candelabra decorated with soft, pink roses. The bridal party is also more formal, with the bride in a long, elegant dress and an antique brooch in her hair.

Art Deco

There is no escaping the Great Gatsby, and the 1920s inspiration that is currently sweeping through weddings. Brides the world over are embracing the Roaring Twenties, and are doing the Charleston as their first wedding dance. Black and white are popular colour schemes, and there are metallic hues in everything from cutlery to cakes. Tables are covered in strong geometric or floral patterns and they’re decorated with feathers and pearls. Be bold with your Art Deco invitations and explore the theme more subtlety with angular accessories like earrings. Be sure to include a signature drink and round off the evening with a live jazz band. It was an extravagant time in history, so replicate that and make a statement with your elegant and elaborate Art Deco wedding