Weddings are back, bigger and more expensive than ever.
The Wedding Report, a market research firm, estimates 2.5 million weddings will be held in 2022, the highest in the United States since 1984.
And couples are spending more to get the wedding of their dreams, with a lot of that money going toward nontraditional themes, over-the-top florals, one-of-a-kind cakes and highly personalized elements throughout the celebrations.
From bouquets to venues — and everything in between — check out what regional brides and vendors have to say about what’s in and what’s out for weddings this year.
Tuesday is the new Saturday
Paula Bernstein remembers that weekday wedding bookings “used to be an absolute never-in-a-million years.”
Bernstein is vice president of sales and marketing for David Burke Hospitality Management, which manages Orchard Park by David Burke and provides food and beverage for events at Château Grande Hotel, both in East Brunswick, New Jersey.
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Those million years seem to be over. Château Grande Hotel hosts at least one weekday wedding per week, with about 5 to 10% of its weekday bookings taking place between Monday and Wednesday.
Weekdays are viable alternatives for many couples otherwise struggling to find available venues, many of which are booked years in advance. The backlog of countless postponed weddings from 2020 meant that in 2021, venue and vendor availability on Fridays and Saturdays was scarce.
According to Wedding Report, 1.27 million weddings took place in 2020, nearly half as many as usual. Then, in 2021, 1.93 million couples tied the knot. And, according to a Zola report, 20% more weekday weddings are booked for 2022 than in 2019.
“The weekends are booking and booked, so if you want to get married and your favorite Saturday night in October is not available but that Thursday night is, you’re heavily considering that more so because of COVID,” Bernstein said. “The reality is, couples are going to have many more options available to them if they choose those midweek days.”
Although Katryn Flynn and Colin Pascik of Hackettstown, New Jersey, who got engaged in December of 2020, booked their 2022 Thursday wedding on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, well in advance anyway, they found booking vendors was easier due to their midweek date.
Flynn found both venue and vendor prices were discounted. Vendors generally charged about 10-15% less for Thursday weddings, she said.
At Château Grande Hotel, weekday weddings generally cost 25% less than their weekend counterparts, a big pro for couples on a budget.
The biggest weekday wedding “con?” Keeping guests happy, stress-free and in attendance, said Bernstein.
“Brides and grooms do have some nerves about who is going to be attend and what kind of challenge that is going to provide to their guests,” she said. “They don’t want to put guests in a position where they have to make choices, so they struggle with that.”
Before Flynn got engaged, she said she would “never never never” considered booking a weekday wedding to avoid inconveniencing her guests. But since she is having a destination wedding and her guests are scattered around the country, she figured it didn’t make much of a difference what day they chose.
“People say, ‘Oh well, if I have to go that far anyway, I might as well take some extra days and go see the area and hang out and actually see the bride and groom,’ “ she said, adding that she has received few declines from her guests and little negative feedback about her date.
“We also figured anyone who wants to be there will be there,” Flynn continued. “Anybody that is really important to us will find a way to make it work.”
Weekday wedding attendance is typically smaller, Bernstein said, but widespread remote work opportunities also have made weekday weddings more doable.
“Everyone’s work schedule has completely changed,” Bernstein continued. “Now everyone can work from everywhere, so to go to a wedding on a Monday or Tuesday night is not so farfetched because you can work from your hotel room all day and still go to the wedding that night.”
Personalized themes are big
Devon Mendoza and her fiancé Andrew Savage will marry at Cedar Mahantongo Lodge in Dalmatia, Pennsylvania, on Memorial Day weekend with a theme that is dear to both of them — a Juarassic Park/Notre Dame mashup.
“I am a massive fan of ‘Jurassic Park,’ ” Mendoza said. “My bridal shower theme was ‘Our Love is Dino-Mite’ and I wanted to have those elements in the wedding, too.”
Mendoza’s husband is a huge Notre Dame fan, so they will have navy blue and gold as their wedding colors and their guest book will be a nod to the “Play Like a Champion Today” sign Notre Dame displays. They also will have gold-painted dinosaurs.
Mendoza will walk down the aisle to the “Jurassic Park” theme song and has asked their photographer to capture a shot of the bride and groom running away from a T-Rex.
She wanted to have lots of greenery for the ceremony and reception to bring the ‘Jurassic Park’ theme to life, but she chose to go with all fake florals to save money and avoid triggering any allergies.
“We are definitely going more with the greenery route, and not as many florals. We have rectangle tables with eucalyptus garland and faux white roses, just greenery draped everywhere,” she said.
Mendoza opted for a broach bouquet for herself; her bridesmaids will carry simple eucalyptus bouquets.
The couple is from Lykens, Pennsylvania, and they have done everything “against tradition” — they first bought a house together, then they had three children, and now comes the wedding. It was important for the couple to save money on their wedding while still getting things they both like.
“I always dreamed of a lavish wedding, but that is not realistic with having small kids, so we made some changes and saved money where we could,” Mendoza said.
To do that, Mendoza, a makeup artist, opted to do her own makeup for the wedding. The couple live in a small town and Mendoza said choosing vendors from smaller areas, like a “mom and pop shop” for her dresses, helped them save money.
“Facebook Marketplace was great for finding décor items, and we saved money by asking friends who got married and using referrals for discounts,” she said.
She confided that her theme has not been well-received by some people, but she thinks guests will be pleasantly surprised when they see it all come together.
Unexpected elements delight guests
Krystyna Amalfe, however, said her guests did enjoy her not-so-common choices.
She and her husband, John Amalfe, married at the Ryland Inn in Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, in September 2021 and chose an “Amalfi Coast” garden theme, a play on their last name.
The Amalfi Coast is known for growing lemons for limoncello liqueur and for beautiful gardens.
The Amalfes also incorporated elements of a fairytale wedding, such as flowers woven into her hair, as a nod to Krystyna’s love for “Cinderella.”
Krystyna said she normally has traditional tastes, but she has always liked over-the-top florals and wanted her wedding and reception to be something people would remember. She rented faux cherry blossom trees, gold candelabras and gold bowls of lemons for the wedding reception tables.
The couple had two floral installations — florals in a chandelier and flowers on columns outside of the grand ballroom.
“Our guests are still talking about our wedding. Everyone appreciated the attention to detail and the overall experience that we were able to create,” she said.
Part of that experience was horses that greeted guests as they arrived, and an artist guests were able to watch paint throughout the wedding reception.
Live event painters are trending for weddings and other special events. These professional artists paint portraits on site, capturing a scene the bride and groom want to memorialize, and entertaining guests throughout the reception.
“I loved seeing how this blank canvas transformed over the course of the reception, and it was something that everyone of all ages could enjoy,” Amalfe said. “It made a really nice insert for ‘thank you’ cards and we have a beautiful piece of art that we can look at every day.”
The Amalfes postponed their wedding for a year, due to the pandemic.
“It was heartbreaking, but we were fortunate that we didn’t have to lose our vision for the wedding. We didn’t have to get new vendors, and I really owe that all to Michelle Ross, the wedding planner at Ryland, who encouraged us to postpone the wedding and keep everything we wanted,” she said. “I am glad we waited.”
Over-the-top florals take center stage
Traditional weddings always included bouquets for the bride and attendants, as well as corsages and table centerpieces. But 6-foot-tall floral structures, greenery cascading from the ceiling, and banisters, fireplaces, bridges and fountains engulfed in lush flowers?
“Now, floral décor is bandied about much more, whereas before you would just hit the salient marks,” said Michael Bruce, a florist for four decades, who owns Michael Bruce Florist based in Haddon Township, New Jersey.
“I think people are just ready to kick the doors open and have a party,” Bruce continued. “They weren’t traveling and going on vacation during COVID-19, so they were saving money. Now as we open back up, they have that money, and they want to celebrate, be awed and get excited.”
More money is needed, as floral prices are up 30 to 50% nationwide, Bruce said. But that doesn’t seem to be deterring some couples. Marilyn Ford, floral designer at Michael Bruce Florist, said she’s seeing much more interest in high-end florals, such as tropical florals, orchids, large garden roses and peonies.
Large garden roses are what Nicole Psomas Tsiamtsiouris of Franklin Lakes, New Jersey, opted for when she was planning her September 2020 wedding.
When Tsiamtsiouris got engaged in November, 2019, she planned to spend $10K to $12K on flowers for her indoor wedding at The Meadow Wood in Randolph, New Jersey. Florals would be one piece of her dream wedding puzzle, which would include a 20-piece band, 600 guests, interactive musicians and performers, and a 3-D photo booth.
That all changed once COVID-19 struck. She and her now-husband John Tsiamtsiouris still planned to get married in September of 2020, albeit outside not inside their venue. The colossal guest list had to go, as did the band and performers. But the flowers had to get bigger, as the outdoor space had more room to fill.
“We took that money we had allocated towards the wedding and we asked ourselves, ‘What can we do to still take the wedding to the level that we want?’ ” Tsiamtsiouris said. “So, we put that money towards the flowers and we gave our florist more creative range to do more over-the-top flower arrangements.”
Forty thousand dollars later, Premier Events by Reema, based in Little Falls, New Jersey, arranged roses along a bridge, up Grecian columns, around a large monitor that broadcast the wedding to the 300 guests, and created 6-foot floral structures that also included greenery, crystals and glass.
To Tsiamtsiouris, every dollar of those flowers was worth it, especially given the loss of some of her dream wedding elements due to COVID-19.
“Given the circumstances, I am so grateful to [my florist] because I feel like it was one of the things that just made our wedding day magical,” she said. “People are still talking about the flowers. They said they had never seen flowers like that in their lives.”
It’s worth it to florists, too, most of whom thrive on creativity and the ability to create show-stopping pieces. At his disposal, Bruce has 6-foot-tall vases, 8-foot metal trees, and other items to work with. He’s filled urns with hydrangeas, orchids and suspended crystals; created huge cascading centerpieces of white roses, hydrangeas and orchids; and suspended white King protea upside-down from one of the metal trees with a 90-inch circumference.
“People want to have a show and they are looking around to see what they can do to make a place even more beautiful,” Bruce said. “It allows us to play with more things, and that’s very exciting for us, too.”
Saving money with live plants
While big florals are making a statement, live plants and greenery also are trendy, especially for those brides who want to save money.
Brina Williams-Jones, owner of Plant Box Co. in York, Pennsylvania, said she is seeing a lot of brides ask for over-the-top bouquets, but simple and understated florals elsewhere.
“Brides are still doing elaborate dresses, so they want the focus on them,” she said. “We are seeing a lot of lace and a lot of details in the bridal gowns.”
Plant Box Co. is a “houseplant boutique” that specializes in designing centerpieces, arches and other floral decor. Williams-Jones said they are seeing a lot of lower profile table settings.
“We spent so long not being able to see one another because of the pandemic, so I think a lot of people want lower centerpieces in order to be able to see and talk with everyone,” she said. “Boho is definitely the vibe right now, but we are also seeing a lot of lush greens with blush, or brighter colors and tropical plants.”
When advising brides on a budget, Williams-Jones said she tells them to spend their money on their theme and splurge on arches.
“People aren’t looking at the flowers along the aisle as much as they are looking at the bride and groom in front of the arch, so we advise brides to save money by focusing on their theme and ditching aisle flowers to spend more on the arch,” she said. “Corsages may also be skipped in favor of posies, instead, that way people continue to enjoy them after your day.”
She added that dried florals are more expensive than live plants or fresh flowers, and when decorating for an outdoor wedding, lush greens hold up better than forals.
A lot of brides are asking for flowers in their hair or floral crowns, Williams-Jones said.
“We are getting a lot of requests for flower crowns, and many brides are asking for simple bouquets for their bridesmaids,” she said. “There’s really a trend toward natural, earthy, but whimsical and fairytale weddings that we are seeing.”
‘Big weddings are back’
Speaking of bridesmaids, Plant Box Co. has handled many weddings that have huge bridal parties.
“Big weddings are back, and particularly big wedding parties,” Williams-Jones said.
Plant Box Co. handles two weddings a weekend, and 2023 “already feels crazy” she said.
“We are already getting inquiries into 2024, which isn’t too unusual, but the truly unusual thing is the number of brides calling for bouquets with only six weeks’ notice. That is generally not heard of in the floral industry, but many people weren’t sure they would be able to get married because of the COVID surges and when they realize they can, they plan quickly.”
Boho is the trend that offers it all
Boho style is known for being eclectic, carefree and unconventional. It features rustic, natural and vintage details, and highly customizeable, which is one reason so many brides are choosing it.
In fact, it’s so popular, one bride recently started a business from her wedding decor.
Maria Samrineto and her husband, Chris, married on Halloween 2021 at the Farm Bakery & Events in Quakertown, Pennsylvania.
“My husband and I really love Halloween and like to partake in all of this holiday’s traditions, like going pumpkin picking, hayrides, visiting haunted houses and watching lots of horror movies. We actually met in the month of October, so a Halloween wedding reminds us of the things we did together when we first dated,” Sarmiento said.
The Sarmientos have a “low key and relaxed” style, and both are “creative and quirky.”
“We wanted to incorporate some Halloween themes in our wedding without making the whole event focused on the holiday. We had one of our groomsmen enter the reception in a dinosaur costume and that was one of the things our guests still often talk about,” she said. “We also had a ‘beer boy’ pass out drinks before the ceremony and a flower guy, which everyone also thought was funny.”
The couple had to postpone their wedding twice due to the pandemic, and that is how they decided to open a business.
Sarmiento said it was a somewhat difficult to find a boho decor vendor that fit with their wedding vision.
“We had a wonderful vendor that was, understandably, not able to accommodate our third new wedding date … So, we just started to purchase instead of rent. As we started collecting all of our boho decor, we realized that this is the niche and we didn’t have this in our area.”
That is how Boho and Magnolia was born. Chris has a background in web development and Maria has experience in web design, so it they were able to create their own web-based business. in Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania, offering decor rentals and styling.
The response has been incredible.
“It proved to us that there was a need in our area for what we offer. We’ve been really grateful and we feel blessed that so many people have shared our vision and applied it to their own events,” Maria said.
Sarmiento said she thinks the bohemian style could be applied in every generation as new brides fall in love with it and make it their own.
“The bohemian vibe is really inspired by those who are in love with life, its colors, [eclecticism], those who are free-spirited and norm defying. There’s a lot of traditions and norms in weddings and it’s just beautiful that couples are confident and free that they are able to put their own spin on how they want their special day to look and what best represents them,” she said.
Untraditional is the new normal
Miranda Koons from New Oxford, Pennsylvania, said circumstance dictated her upcoming nontraditional wedding, to be held in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
Her children will be her bridesmaids at her August 2022 wedding, which will be held on the beach on a Tuesday.
“We already had our vacation paid for and planned when I decided to contact RMB weddings in Myrtle Beach to see if they were available for us to marry on the beach,” she said. “My date to be married was decided by when we were there on vacation and me having enough time to get to the courthouse for the marriage license.”
Koons saved money on her wedding by keeping things simple and small.
“I bought my wedding dress from LuLu’s online. It’s a simple, white lace-up in the back maxi dress that I think is perfect for a simple beach wedding. My shoes will be barefoot sandals, and I found those on Etsy,” the bride-to-be said. “I spent less than $500 for everyone’s attire that is in the wedding. The decorations are provided by RMB Weddings, so I don’t have to worry about finding those.”
Probably the most nontraditional thing about Koons’ upcoming nuptials, though, is that she won’t be exchanging rings. She and her fiancé Devon May had rings tattooed on their fingers.
“We chose tattoos to be different, and it’s also saving us money,” she said. “I have a ‘D’ tattooed on mine and he has an ‘M’ tattooed on his. I’m good with not having a big diamond, and if I ever change my mind, then there’s opportunity to buy one, but I honestly don’t think I will.”
Brides want simple, classy looks
Devon Mendoza said she’s also seeing a shift in what brides want for makeup and hair, with most of her recent clients opting for “classic, timeless looks that enhance their natural beauty” and not so much the dramatic, dark looks from just a few years before.
“They want dewy, radiant skin, not matte, and they are keeping it simple and classy,” she said.
According to makeup artist and hair stylist Lindsey Forbes, this year’s brides-to-be have been requesting more nontraditional looks with hair and makeup, too. Big this year is the half-up/half-down hairstyles involving pearl hair accessories. Makeup is being done in warmer tones to accommodate moodier photography.
“Veils are getting shorter, or nonessential anymore. Pearl accessories are big thing, like pearl bobby pins and pearl barrettes,” she said.
Forbes, who owns Fades Beards and Beauty in Pennsylvania, has been a makeup artist for seven years. She said that 2021 ended on a decent note for her, but 2022 was totally booked by February.
“We have nothing available the rest of this year, and we have seven weddings booked for 2023 and one for 2024 already,” she said. “Booking is 16 to 24 months in advance because it’s a fight for popular dates.”
Forget chicken & steak: Catering gets creative
For a long time, it was likely you’d get a piece of beef or chicken for a wedding guest entrée. These days, thanks to an over-abundance of food TV, social media and rapid recipe swaps, food matters.
It’s not an afterthought to an experienced DJ or a beautiful dress – it’s the main event. Just read any venue’s review on Google, Facebook or wedding planning sites such as The Knot – nowadays, food often is the first item reviewers critique.
At century-old Perona Farms in Andover, New Jersey, an event venue that offers three spaces including a barn, a refinery-style structure and a rustic estate, food has always been a big reason for booking. These days, even more couples are tuned into that, said Bryant Avondoglio, the general manager and part of the fifth generation of family to run the property.
“It’s our job to up the experience a little bit,” said Avondoglio. “We are not going to serve you pigs in a blanket. Every passed item that you eat at our cocktail hour should be something you’ve never seen before.”
At Perona Farms, as many ingredients as possible are sourced from local farms and purveyors, including scallops from Long Beach Island’s Viking Village, milk from Newton’s Springhouse Creamery, cheese from Branchville’s Jersey Girl Cheese, produce from Fredon’s Lentini Farms, and greens and herbs from Perona Farms’ own hydroponic greenhouse.
“People are always really shocked by our salad,” said Avondoglio. “Our salad is whatever is picked from the greenhouse that day. The greens are grown right here and they’ll cut it and walk right into the dining room.”
Salad dressings, and anything else possible, including crab cakes, are made in-house. Other popular dishes have included New Jersey scallops with a Sussex County corn succotash; local ricotta-stuffed homemade gnocchi; and branzino stuffed with leek fondue and truffle butter.
Every season, the menu changes. Guests choose their menu items as well as serving style, which includes plated dinner, family-style, hybrid of family-style and plated dinner, and cocktail style. But even these options have a bit of a different edge.
“We don’t start with the traditional soup and salad – we like to wow you with the first course, so we often serve Maine lobster tails or lamb chops to grab guests’ attention and then follow with soup and salad,” said Marley Avondoglio, sales director. “We also recommend serving a duet plate of both entrée options to guests. It’s more of a ‘wow factor,’ and you get two options instead of looking at the plate next to you and saying, ‘I wish I ordered that one.’ “
“People write about us all the time and say, ‘Wow, the food was awesome, it was so fresh, it was so different,’ “ continued Bryant Avondoglio. “That’s the vibe we’re going for.”
Prices per person at Perona Farms range from $165 to $235, not including tax and gratuity. However, as Clinton residents and spouses-to-be Sonie Maikami and Ian Cartwright have found, you don’t need to spend hundreds of dollars per person on wedding food if you’re willing to get creative. And, you can still enjoy a mix of cuisine to satisfy any picky guest.
The self-proclaimed foodies got engaged in November 2021, and decided to spend their nest egg on their dream home, and host a micro wedding in the backyard of their new house in September 2022.
They plan to offer a smorgasbord of dishes from their favorite local spots, including appetizers and entrees from a Thai restaurant, vegetarian options from a Spanish catering service, sushi from a nearby sushi eatery, and pizza thanks to the brick pizza oven in their backyard. They may hire a few food trucks and enlist a few more restaurants, too.
“Our family loves to cook and eat, and we love all types of different food,” said Maikami. “But traditional catering at a venue would cost at least $5K to $6K for a two-course meal for our 50 guests. With this mix, we have a variety of food, but we are only spending $2K to $3K at most.”
Their guests are excited about it, too – Maikami said it doesn’t seem as if anyone is lamenting the loss of traditional wedding entrée choices.
“Ever since we got engaged, we told our guests, ‘There is going to be sushi and Thai food — there isn’t going to be anything traditional unless we find a venue that’s affordable,’ ” she continued. “Because our wedding is very relaxed in style, I don’t think people will have a problem with that. We will have chicken, beef, tofu and vegetarian options just to make sure everyone is covered. But it’s more intimate, fun and casual to do it this way.”
Tradition is gets tech-savvy
The world was tech-savvy before COVID-19, yet the convenience and seamlessness of virtual elements were long left out of wedding customs. Pricey invitations made their way through the postal system, paper programs and signage were common, and an inability to make it to the ceremony meant you could only hope to hear couples’ vows via a produced video.
But like many things, that changed drastically after March 2020.
“In 2018, if you sent someone a virtual save-the-date, it would be a faux pas,” said Cydney Appolito, a Roseland, New Jersey, resident whose wedding is planned for next February. “I would say if COVID-19 didn’t happen, virtual invites would not be a thing. It gave the OK to lose that formality since now, we’ve had two years of virtual weddings.”
Björn Van Wyngaardt, Manhattan-based wedding planner and owner of Björn VW Events, remembers this, too. He recalls how even in 2019, couples were not really interested in virtual invitations. However, once COVID-19 struck, they were a necessity.
“A lot of couples used virtual invitations because sometimes, the weddings were happening so quickly that they didn’t have time to send out invitations,” he said.
Virtual invitations quickly caught on due to their ease, affordability, eco-friendliness, cleanliness, and ability to circumvent an unpredictable postal system.
Appolito and her fiancé Matthew Kmetz are using WithJoy for guests to RSVP. They’re sending virtual invitations to the majority of guests, but paper invitations to some older guests who will appreciate the tradition and may not be so tuned into tech.
“Mostly, it made the most sense to us just for anxiety and peace of mind’s sake,” Appolito said. “If someone loses the invitation, or if they want to decide at 1 a.m. that they want to RSVP, they can do it. They don’t need to remember to mail something. Who wants to go to the post office? Nobody. And our friends don’t want to hang my picture on their fridge, but my aunt does.”
Appolito also said she simply doesn’t trust the mail. In March, she finally received a Christmas card from one of her friends.
“You are spending all of this money on the food and everything, and imagine someone isn’t coming because they simply didn’t get the invite or you never got their response,” she said.
Appolito said the only complaints she has gotten about the virtual invitations are family members who want the tradition of paper invitations.
“I do understand the tradition of having those paper invitations, but we are not in those times anymore,” she said. “We can create new traditions where a virtual save-the-date is a lot cooler because its plays a video and you can put a song to it. There are cons, but the pros will always outweigh them. This allows me to save a few hundred dollars and have better florals.”
One of the cons, said Van Wyngaardt, is that a virtual invitation can feel less formal than a paper invitation, and a paper invitation also can better convey the style of the wedding based on factors including the weight and texture of the paper. He recalls receiving an invitation to an event last year that epitomized an invitation’s potential.
“I opened the door, and there was a model in a tuxedo delivering my invitation,” he said. “That set the tone to me of what the event was going to be, because it started with class from the minute the invitation arrived.”
Van Wyngaardt suggests couples interested in using virtual invitations but concerned about losing formality hire a stationer to create a custom virtual invitation, although he adds he’s seen beautiful designs from sites such as Paperless Post recently.
Appolito’s stationer designed one version of her invitation as a PDF and one on paper.
Virtual invitations aren’t the only ways couples are bringing tech to their wedding planning. Zoom and other livestreaming platforms have proven themselves to be more than a way for people to connect on a personal and professional basis, as some couples are livestreaming their ceremonies.
Appolito is doing this, too. Her guests are spread out throughout the country, so she doesn’t want travel to stand in the way of them missing out on her celebration.
“If you can’t afford to come, we don’t want you to miss it, so guests can join us virtually,” she said. “And for events like my bridal shower, I am not going to make my 75-year-old aunt from Nevada fly to New Jersey for a two-hour event. COVID and Zoom made wedding travel a lot easier because you can be there, but not really be there.”
Van Wyngaardt has seen this a lot in his business, too. When weddings were limited in capacity, many of his clients chose to livestream their ceremonies to what would have been their complete guest lists.
Now, he has noticed videography teams have added livestreaming to their offerings. Van Wyngaardt recommends that couples interested in livestreaming hire a professional to do so, rather than rely on questionable internet connections, smart phone video and sound quality, and possible login issues.
“People can FaceTime with their phones, but it won’t have the same quality, sound or effect that a professional videography company will have,” he said. “With livestreaming, people can witness the ceremony from around the globe and no one will feel like they’re missing out.”
