Five Biggest Wedding Trends for 2018

Fall wedding bouquets, from the Garden by the Gate florist.

(A 2-part post)

In an unscientific study of 2018 wedding trends, I went to a lot of popular wedding websites and looked at their hottest wedding trends for 2018. There were some common threads, a few outliers, and at least one where the experts contradicted each other! Before I get to the top 5 trends that I found I’ll give you the ideas that are definitely trends, but perhaps not everywhere for everyone.

  • Cakes, big cakes: It sounds like the multi-tiered cake with elaborate decoration is making a comeback after years of cookies, cupcakes, and pies. Personally, I think donuts are still trending.
  • Floral backdrops: Equally popular are the flower wall, greenery wall, and circular arbor, with the flower wall being the spendiest.
  • Geometrics: This trend tag-teams with the BoHo look, metallics, and succulents. It is seen as hanging decorations, vases, and floral risers, or backdrops.
  • Open Photo Booth: Also called the no-booth booth. Your photographer sets up a background, supplies the props, and stations an assistant to snap everyone’s shenanigans. I love it when the background brings out the theme of the wedding.
  • A shout-out to the runners-up: Wedding entertainment, neon signs, succulents, unique food, textured table linens, and the woodsy look

Where do the experts disagree? Flower crowns. Some say they are going strong, some say stop already. I’m not tired of them, especially for little girls.

Now on to the main event! The number one trend for 2018 is color! That includes many-colored palettes, bright palettes, and the moody color palette.

Number 1: Color!

Or as I like to say, the Color of the Year is Color! It couldn’t come soon enough for us here at the Garden by the Gate. Our garden grows in an abundance of bright colors, including the Pantone color of the year, Ultra Violet, and the ever-popular burgundy. But try them in a new combination with another color. Ultra Violet pops with Lime Punch! And there are so many great lime green flowers and foliages now. Green trick Dianthus, green Hypericum berries, or Bells of Ireland add great texture as well as color. Burgundy continues its popularity in a color Pantone calls Spiced Apple. It looks great with the tried-and-true dusty rose, but we suggest going a little bolder with Sailor Blue. The moody palettes lend themselves to a fairy-tale themed or woodland wedding. The colors are intense reds, greens, or purples. Add at least one shade that is so deep it is almost black, for the perfect moody color palette.

Next post, we’ll dive deeper into the color trend and give you the rest of the top wedding trends for 2018!

Jewel Tones for Fall

EllieJay's Photography

As fall brings a nip in the air

nature puts on some of her most vibrant colors. Nicole and Issac’s wedding was on a perfect September day and they chose a perfect fall color palette that included harvest colors of eggplant, wine, maize, apple green, and all the oranges of a maple tree at peak fall color. Nicole carried her grandmother’s rosary down the aisle along with her bouquet of black magic roses, dahlias, mums, hypericum berries, scabiosa pods, and seeded eucalyptus. Since the Garden by the Gate uses locally grown flowers as much as possible, I had told Nicole that I wasn’t sure if the scabiosa pods would be ready in time for her wedding. Luckily my crop of scabiosa pods matured at just the right moment to be included in Nicole’s wedding flowers. Homegrown dahlias used included Hollyhill Black Beauty, Voodoo, Diva, and Summers End. Most of those are new varieties that were chosen with Nicole’s color scheme in mind. See all the gorgeousness captured by EllieJay Photography HERE

Gomphocarpus physocarpus
Gomphocarpus physocarpus

When you choose the Garden by the Gate for your wedding flowers, we get right to work making sure that we will have your flowers ready for your wedding. We’ll order dahlia bulbs, seed packets, or plants that coordinate with your color scheme. We also work with local growers like Bloom Hill Farm, a family flower farm in Uniontown, Ohio (just 5 minutes away from the Garden by the Gate).

For Nicole’s wedding, we planted dahlias in shades of eggplant, wine, and orangy-peach. Scabiosa pods were new for me this year, and I have to say they are pretty easy to grow and they are perfect for adding soft texture and unique color to bouquets. For the centerpieces, we planted Benary’s Giants zinnias in purple, wine, gold, and orange.

The most unique thing we grew this year is seen in the ceremony arrangments. Balloon plant milkweed is grown for the balloon-like inflated seed pods that appear in the fall. It is also the food of Monarch Butterflies, an endangered species. I think they added great interest to the arrangements.