How To Embrace Wedding ‘Trends’ + Styles You Love

hanging flowers

As I’m sure you can imagine, I live and breathe the world of weddings. It’s therefore no surprise that I consume a lot of wedding content and that I spend at least a couple of hours every day reading about or looking at weddings on social media, blogs and in magazines.

As much as I’m inspired and entertained by the majority of what I see and what I read, there are some features that actually make me cross. Cross and angry on behalf of couples and wedding professionals alike and today, enough is enough. I’m going to put it on the record that I’ve had enough of and am so over ‘so over’ features.

I’m sure you’ll have seen them. Clickbait style features declared what’s ‘so over’ when it comes to weddings and lists of ‘wedding trends we’ll be glad to say goodbye to’ written by people who seem to think that they can declare, with the tap of a key, what couples should or shouldn’t do.

And this makes me so incredibly sad, particularly when the same people are so often saying ‘it’s your wedding day so do what you want’. Well, it seems that you can only do what you want if that matches up with their ideas of what’s ‘hot’, ‘on trend’ or ‘new and fabulous’ because they’re also so very happy to tell you what they’re ‘so over’!

Now there will always be pieces about trends and new ideas and that’s great. We all need an injection of inspirational fun. It’s good to see things afresh and it’s also great to see things you like featured because it can give you confidence which is just what you need sometimes when you’re planning a wedding.

Imagine that we’d carefully planned our wedding, included lots of details that were special to us, spent time putting something together and then read, just a few days BEFORE our wedding that what we’d chosen was ‘so over’. And that’s why these clickbait features are nothing short of cruel.

And, on the flip side, there will always be things that we see a lot. We see a lot of greenery, hanging flowers, hand painted signs, festoon lights, illuminated signs and naked cakes for example – but that’s absolutely perfectly wonderfully ok. Just because lots of couples have chosen the same thing doesn’t mean the ‘thing’ in question isn’t brilliant or that it isn’t going to look completely amazing on your day.

So how dare anyone tell you that anything that you’ve chosen to include in your wedding is ‘so over’. No one knows why you’ve chosen the things that you have and to suggest that something is boring, old hat or not interesting is plain rude and can be incredibly hurtful. If you’ve chosen something because you love it, it suits your wedding and it’s something that you want to include, absolutely no one has the right to tell you that it’s ‘over’. Perhaps something has personal significance, or you’ve always promised yourself that you’ll include this detail – how can you ever be ‘over’ that?

I think this really hit home for me personally when I read an article in a magazine a couple of months after I got married and the song that we’d chosen for our first dance had been ranked as the most ‘so over’ song of 2013. And you know what, that really hurt me to read that someone could say that without thinking of how that would make me, or countless other people who had and still choose that song, feel. The song has incredible personal significance, it suited our wedding and I wouldn’t have changed my decision for the world.

You also have to remember that most of your guests absolutely do not live in the wedding world so even if you get to a point of feeling that you’ve seen lots of your own wedding details online before your own big day, you can be sure that your guests won’t have…

I was hurt for sure and it did slightly mar the memories of our first dance but imagine if that had been the other way around. Imagine that we’d carefully planned our wedding, included lots of details that were special to us, spent time putting something together and then read, just a few days BEFORE our wedding that what we’d chosen was ‘so over’.

And that’s why these clickbait features are nothing short of cruel. They’re telling people that what they’ve done or what they’re thinking isn’t good, or cool enough. These features also get under your skin, particularly because weddings are so personal. Reading a feature that tells you what you’ve done is ‘so over’ is a slap. It’s a personal affront to what you’ve chosen and what you’ve decided you want to include in the most important day of your life.

Now I know that these features are written by people who see weddings every damn day, and they’ll also have been told that this is the feature they have to write so perhaps we should cut them a bit of slack. A lot of these pieces also come from the US or Australia where some of the trends have been around for a while, but they could still be fresh and new in the UK.

You also have to remember that most of your guests absolutely do not live in the wedding world so even if you get to a point of feeling that you’ve seen lots of your own wedding details online before your own big day, you can be sure that your guests won’t have – you’ll  in fact be offering them things that are new and different and wonderful and memorable – the kind of elements required to create a great memory of your wedding day.

But I would like to remind you that no one has the right to judge your plans and I don’t feel that they have the right to creep into your life via your phone or iPad to tell you that what you’ve done isn’t good enough. We all, happily, have our own tastes, our own ideas and our own list of priorities. Those things are your choice. Always your choice. Not the choice of someone else.

And the irony is that even the ‘new trends’ that you see aren’t really new. Someone will have done it before otherwise how has anyone else found out about it? You’ll never have a totally ‘rulebook free’ wedding and you’re unlikely to do or find something completely new for your day. Even if you do, another couple somewhere will see what you’ve done, take it and then someone else will be ‘so over’ your wedding at some point.

So, it’s time to say we’re all so damn over the ‘so over’ features. Instead, let’s talk about creating a wedding that suits you and celebrates couples who’ve had a wedding that they love, whatever they include. How can we ever be ‘so over’ weddings like that?

Perhaps it’s time to be a little kinder, a little more thoughtful and a whole lot less judgemental. It’s time to have the wedding that you want, no matter what.

Love Katrina

Credits & Thanks

Katrina

Katrina View all Katrina's articles

I’m a planner, strategist, designer, thinker, doer, perfectionist, artist, creative, partner, friend, and I’m passionate about supporting the incredible community of Love My Dress readers by sharing my knowledge of weddings and wedding planning via regular, HONEST and practical planning features. As part of the Love My Dress team, I love having the opportunity to explore different aspects of wedding planning and since 2015 have covered everything from learning how to embrace imperfection to pressures, worries and wobbles. You can find out more about who I am, what I do, my style, my approach, and the wedding planning support services I offer at Katrina Otter Weddings.

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