Smaller Weddings with Bigger Vibes are the Trend in 2023
SAINT JOHN — Small extravagances and unique touches, rather than big productions, are among the trends for weddings in 2023.
Clothing designer Chavah Lindsay says more couples are looking for unique and meaningful touches for their weddings.
“There’s a lot of non-traditional dresses which I’m really loving, so that’s kind of a new thing,” she says.
“I’m doing quite a few non-white dresses, from black to yellow,” she explains. “I think people are just thinking, you know, this is my day, why do I have to be in a white dress, It’s not my style.”
To capitalize on the trend toward smaller, more personal, weddings, Lindsay has just created a bridal box service that provides a will you be my bridesmaid? offering or a thank you to wedding party members.
She says the kind of personalization that comes from the boxes makes sense in a market where people want smaller, more intimate ceremonies.
“There’s a lot more simplicity in wedding parties. And people aren’t going over the top with the amount of people they have in their bridal party, which is nice to see. It just feels more intimate,” she explains.
Wedding planner Palmer Dennison says the pace of 2023 has ticked down from the frenzy of 2022 when couples were trying to catch up with all of the delayed pandemic plans of the past two years.
“Last year was absolutely crazy,” says Dennison, who started her planning business, Palmer Events, during the pandemic. She says in 2022 it wasn’t unusual for her to be the planner for multiple weddings every weekend.
“There were so many people trying to get married. Every vendor just really wanted to accommodate as many people as they could because the last thing you want to do is just say no,” she said. “This year it’s a bit more relaxed, I’m looking forward to it.”
Dennison is well-booked for the summer season with events at many of the most popular venues, like Algonquin in St. Andrews, the Saint John Marina, and the Riverside Country Club in Rothesay. She says clients have started to take a different perspective on their weddings.
“I feel like Covid kind of gave a push to couples to start thinking about what they want,” she says. “Taking a step back and, you know, really evaluating like: do I want this big wedding, or do I want to just go to Montana and elope on a mountain?’”
In 2023, with inflation taking a bite out of people’s budgets, Dennison says prices are ballooning. Dinners, for example, have gone up by $10 per plate. That’s further incentive to have a more down-to-Earth ceremony packed with meaning rather than people.
That new perspective is continuing to affect weddings in 2023.
“I’ve seen a lot of weddings under 50 people, so I think that’s the biggest thing I’ve seen come out of it,” she says. “I love it when the couple’s just kind of find what they like to do, and they’re happy with it.”
That sentiment is echoed by Elope Halifax’s Jennie Sanford.
Planning to elope is a much smaller and less time-consuming process than having a big wedding. It can be planned months or even weeks in advance and offers a lot of flexibility to clients.
“We have two types of clients, the more traditional where they’re eloping — they may have two to eight people come, and they just want none of [the big wedding plans],” she says. “Then we have another group … that want to be married and want to have a special, intimate experience for themselves with the plan of having a large wedding party in a year, six months, two years, whatever it is.”
“[They] want to be married now.”
While elopement wasn’t seen as a mainstream option pre-pandemic, Sanford says people’s attitudes are changing — and the economy does play a role.
“One thing we’ve noticed couples bring up more is that cost was a major consideration in their decision to have a wedding like this,” she says. “Our clientele two, three years ago, most of the time, it was probably a discussion of we don’t want to have a big party.”
“Now a lot of couples say ‘It was this or house.”’
Even while trying to keep costs lower, Sanford says as a business they are having discussions several times a year about pricing due to inflation. But with packages running in the $1,000 range, it’s still significantly cheaper than a traditional wedding.
For her other business, Party Line, which uses retro 80s phones to make audio guestbooks, she’s already had to make adjustments due to inflation, despite only starting the business a year ago.
As long as the day is a special one for the participants, Sanford says it doesn’t matter if the ceremony is a big production with lots of people.
“We get a lot, a lot of feedback from people saying ‘we’re so glad we did this. We didn’t regret it.’ And I think the root of that is they thought it might be sombre or not as warm or not as memorable if they’re doing it as a small wedding. And that’s simply not the case at all because they have the opportunity to have the wedding they want and focus on each other instead of having to worry about keeping everyone entertained.”
“I think that makes people really happy even if there aren’t a lot of people there.”
Alex Graham is a Huddle reporter in Saint John. Send her your feedback and story ideas: [email protected].
