Unveiling the Trends

Dress designed by Gemy Maalouf

From a Planner’s Perspective
Andrea Pavone, owner of Pavone Events, has been in the wedding industry for the past 12 years and is well-known for producing beautiful Indian weddings. Armed with a passion for celebrating life’s special occasions, Pavone now offers a range of services, including planning, designing, budget review, management, and vendor referrals. Pavone sat down with us to discuss some of the biggest wedding trends of 2016.

Trend: Vintage Decor
Today’s bride is drawn to the vintage look, whether she is using antique furniture as part of the happy hour setups, stacking vintage suitcases and books to be used as a table for the guestbook, or setting the dinner table with flatware made of gold.

Trend: Uplighting
When you’re inside a ballroom or in an outside setting, adding extra lighting around the perimeter of a reception or ceremony adds a touch of color to the space. You can take a plain room and transform it by hanging a large chandelier with lighting elements or using a technique called pin spotting to project light to an area you want to draw attention to like a sweetheart table or cake table. Using string lighting in an outside reception area can make that larger space feel more intimate.

Trend: Personalized Cocktails and Interactive Food
Offering a specialty cocktail during the cocktail hour, like the couples favorite drink or something that matches the color of the wedding, is a way to personalize that moment. When it comes to the food, some couples like the formal feel of having a butler passing hors d’oeuvres and then shifting to a sit-down dinner while others want a relaxed buffet dinner. Those buffets are now being elevated to include interactive food stations like an avocado bar, meat-carving stations or create-your-own pasta stations.

Trend: Weekday Weddings
A way for couples to have a nice wedding but save a lot on costs is to avoid scheduling their big day on the weekend. Since Fridays and Saturdays are the most sought-after days, many venues offer discounts to couples that are willing to schedule a weekday wedding. It is also a way for couples to secure a venue they have had their heart set on but that may be booked out a year in advance on the weekends.

Trend: Neutral Color Palates
The modern bride leans toward more neutral or muted colors like pastels and metallics and not just for her wedding party. Many brides want some color in their own dresses and are going for the blushes, the grays and the champagnes.

Cutting the Cake
Back in September, The Americas Cake & Sugarcraft Fair set up shop at the Orange County Convention Center for a sweet-filled weekend of celebrity guests and baking demonstrations. During this event, we were on the hunt for this year’s most popular trends in wedding cakes.

Ron Ben-Israel, known worldwide for his masterfully created wedding cakes, and Mich Turner, the “Queen of Couture Cakes,” agree that big wedding cakes are making a comeback. Ben-Israel says that people are willing to spend the big bucks for cakes with a regal feel, while Turner believes couples are looking for red carpet glamour on their wedding day, which equates to a cake with height.

Barbara Evans of Wedding Cake Connection, a company based out of Illinois, says that texture is huge with modern wedding cakes. Since Michel Hester introduced a confectionary product called SugarVeil in 2001, brides have been asking bakeries to use it on their cakes. Using SugarVeil, bakers can take the texture from the lace in a bride’s dress or veil and recreate it as a decorating element on her wedding cake.

Other trends include naked cakes (a cake that leaves portions exposed or without frosting), the use of buttercream rather than fondant and having a dessert bar rather than just one big cake.