The Who What Wear Podcast: Is the Era of Overproduced Weddings Finally Over? Wedding Expert Sunna Yassin Shares Where Wedding Trends Are Headed in 2027

0:10Kat Collings:Welcome to the Who What Wear podcast. I'm Who What Wear Editor-in-Chief Kat Collings and today on the show I'm joined by wedding planning expert and co-owner and principal of Bash Please, Sunna Yassin. Senna has spent over a decade in the wedding space, but you most likely know her best from her work on Alex Cooper's Destination Wedding in 2024. Senna is here with us today to talk all things 2027 wedding trends, from stationery to florals to tablescapes. It's all coming up on Who, What, Where.

0:46Kat Collings:Senna, welcome to the pod. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here. So before we get into all things wedding trends for 2027, let's take it back to the beginning, how you got into wedding planning and growing your business to the scale it is today. It feels like so long ago now, a couple of decades actually, but started off in the hotel industry. I loved working in hotels. I worked for kind of a bigger brand hotel and was kind of climbing that ladder. I loved everything about hotels. I loved the energy. I really loved the fact that they never closed. There was always something going on 24 seven. And I kind of left that big box brand and made my way to a luxury property here in San Francisco, doing events and doing catering.

1:33And I actually met a really great destination planner who is still crushing it in the industry to date. And I got the opportunity to work with her and her team. And I learned so much, met a ton of people. It's actually where I met my now business partner who at that time worked for a luxury caterer in the Bay area. And that was kind of the piece that I was really missing. I didn't know a ton about high-end catering and, you know, doing a gala or a huge charity event for thousands of people. So I kind of needed that expertise to kind of continue to grow in my career. So I actually joined her at the catering company and I think I was there for

2:15Kat Collings:about three, maybe two or three years. And then Molly, my business partner now, and I quickly realized, you know, working with a lot of planners and a lot of designers and just a lot of vendors in the industry that there was just something missing in the industry. And I think at that time, we like hadn't pinpointed what was missing, but we just knew there was a void. And so we got together and decided, you know, this was something that we really wanted to do. And I think over time, we kind of figured out our place in the industry. And I think our place was quickly defined by not doing anything that felt really overproduced, but still working at like a high intentional, personal luxury level.

3:02And I think hopefully that point of view has stayed really consistent and really clear over like the last decade of us working together on this. And so yeah, it kind of just like grew and happened.

3:14Kat Collings:So tell me a bit about how you typically get to know a client and their vision. What kind of questions do you ask? Is there anything that you find revealing about who they are and what they're envisioning? And do you use any tools like mood boards or Pinterest? I think in the beginning, we're not really looking at a lot of things that are wedding related. Like we really want to get to know people. We're asking where they like to travel. Are they the type of people that stay in a consistent luxury property, like a Four Seasons, a Ritz Carlton? Do they like to find the boutique cool new hotel on Mr.

3:48And Mrs. Smith when they travel? Do they like to stay in an Airbnb? Are they, you know, always going to the same restaurants every time they visit New York? Or are they, you know, on Dorsia finding the hot new reservation? And I think all of those kinds of things tell us a lot more about our couples. It, you know, shows us where they like to shop. We ask them what podcasts they're listening to, who they look to for inspiration, even if they didn't have an interior designer, you know, do their own home, where they do get inspiration from things like that. It just tells us a lot more about about what they gravitate towards.

4:26Because honestly, when you're looking at a lot of the tools like Instagram and Pinterest, which are wonderful tools, and we do use them down the road, but I think initially it's so overwhelming. They're not really kept up to date that well. So you have people that are looking at things that are no longer available, oversaturated, not in season, won't work for the destination that they're thinking about. So first it's more of just layers of getting to know them. And then slowly we do introduce things like mood boards and putting together different tools for them to kind of say like, Oh yes, I love this.

5:01No, I don't love that. But at first I think it's just a discovery phase. And I actually think some couples come to find that they answer things differently. If we say, if you're having friends over on a Saturday night, what are you having for dinner? Are you guys ordering takeout? Are you getting pizza and asking everyone to come over and ask leisure? Or does everyone know they're coming to your house and you're serving martinis and, you know, it's a big old great meal on the kitchen island and everybody's sitting down to a formal table setting and there's music playing and there's candles lit.

5:31One partner might say, we're ordering pizza and the other might say like, no, I'm setting a full table. So it's fun to kind of see from them to like what they gravitate towards. And it helps us kind of start to define their story.

5:42Kat Collings:So your company bash, please was of course, behind Alex Cooper's destination wedding in Mexico a couple of years ago. You know, we're familiar with the final results photos, but I'd love to hear a little bit more about that process and how you arrived at such a gorgeous event. You know, the one thing about working with Alex and Matt, it was a wonderful experience. We were fortunate to work with Matt's brother also. So we knew their family really well, which was great in terms of everything. But, you know, an interesting thing about them is we never got one single inspiration photo. There was never a, this is what we have in mind.

6:15This is what we want something to look like. This is the location. So really the only thing we worked off of was getting to know Alex and Matt through that kind of process that I just mentioned. I would say like the creative thesis for their wedding became incredibly clear. It had to unmistakably be about Alex and Matt and their future together. And I think with that clear direction, all of the things started kind of falling into place. You know, I'll give an example. When we were visiting the property, you know, kind of during the scouting site visit phase, Alex fell in love with kind of like the entrance to the hotel, which wasn't traditionally where they did ceremonies.

7:00I think most people go to the Mexico, they want to get married on a beach. That wasn't her thing either. And she just fell in love with the front of the hotel, but it didn't have like a traditional aisle, so to speak. So we were like talking and thinking about it and have these beautiful doors. I'm sure you guys remember the photos, but we stopped and we were like, what if we open the doors and instead of Alex being walked down the aisle, she walked herself down the aisle towards Matt and to the guests versus everybody, you know, turning around to look at her. And that just became so clear in that moment because that really felt perfect for Alex Cooper.

7:40And everything else just kind of spiraled from there. Every decision was very clear.

7:47Kat Collings:Let's break down the shift that we're seeing that you talked about to one of our editors, Nikki Chwatt, who did a wedding planning trend story where you were an expert. And you said couples are now prioritizing intimacy over spectacle and depth over excess. Did we hit a peak visibility excess, like that kind of thing? And then this is kind of the come down from that? Yeah, I think we did sort of hit a peak. I mean, I think at one point luxury was associated with more. It was more flowers, more production, more everything. And I think today at least our couples are kind of redefining that. I also think the word luxury is being tossed around at every turn, you know, and I think people are really taking a step back.

8:29And to us, I think like luxury actually feels like just having enough confidence to actually edit and kind of bring things down. And I think we're just seeing like celebration over performance for sure. And really, really seeing like atmosphere over decoration and just like coming back to the emotional memory that people are experiencing over the weekend versus like some sort of visual spectacle. I think that if we can get a little messy on the podcast, I think that a lot of people started, I think a lot of people started kind of overproducing for maybe their own ego, like as planners, as designers, as professionals in the industry, you know, most couples don't see a lot until they become engaged.

9:20So they're looking at things for, you know, maybe a couple of weeks, a couple of months before they start, you know, hiring professionals. But all of us are seeing things year after year after year. And there's some people that do so much amazing work and they're doing huge productions and they are incredible. We look at them and we're like, oh my God, that must've taken two weeks. I can't even imagine how much planning, like it is impressive, but I think to most couples it's not attainable and it's honestly just like not necessary. So I think people are really just taking a step back and we're asking really, really simple questions.

9:58It's, will your guests remember this or are we doing this because it's going to look impressive on Instagram. It changes everything when you ask that simple question. And I think some people are surprised by the question and some people are really honest. Like I do want it to look this way for Instagram, or I do want it to look this way for publication. And that's great. And that's fine. But I think at the core, we have to ask the question because it defines everything. The guest count, you know, who we're working with, where we're working. And so I think that's kind of the shift that we're seeing and the questions that we're asking.

10:33Yeah.

10:33Kat Collings:I'd love to know how it's playing out. Like for example, in stationary, like, do you see that trend affecting any of the elements like the save the date, the invitation, the menu, so on? We're obviously in a digital era. I'm sure some stationers are going to probably hate this, hate this answer if we're talking about stationary specific, but we're in a digital era. That's true. But I think even more than that, like we are trying to give couples permission to decide really what's important to them and what matters. And we're just here to guide them through that process. So if we have a client who say like, honestly, like this is a really far destination.

11:09It's a prime, you know, summer date. We really just want like to get this date on people's calendars. Like I just want to send a calendar invite. We're like, then do that. If that feels natural to you, send the calendar invite. If you don't want to go through, you know, a four to five, six week process of designing a save the day and spending money on that, send the calendar invite, and then let's regroup and let's decide down the road what's important. Maybe it's putting time and energy into a beautiful tactile invitation. Maybe it's doing something where we're weaving in a story into, you know, welcome amenities or day of pieces.

11:49But I think we're just moving away from this box of save the date, check. Invitations, check. Bar menu, even though you don't have anything special to say about cocktails, check. It's just really, I think, kind of taking a step back and saying, just because you've seen it done a bunch of ways doesn't mean that that has to be your same way. I think the core principle there is decide what matters to you and then make what matters to you special.

12:17Kat Collings:Because sometimes it can feel a little bit like a pageant. You have to do every single element of this choreographed weekend. And that's a question that we ask in the beginning too. It's like, are you looking for a very traditional sequence of events or are you open to breaking the mold a little bit and changing the sequence of things and making things feel based on the environment? If it's really hot where you are, maybe you don't want a ceremony to start really early and you want things to start later. We're in a location next year where we're doing a night ceremony. I personally got married at sunrise because I got married in a really low climate.

12:51Like there's different ways to break those kinds of mold. So I think it's just about like asking those questions.

12:57Kat Collings:One trend I've been seeing is personalized letters at every guest's seat. And obviously this is meaningful and wonderful memento. Are there any other creative ways that you recommend to your clients to incorporate like a, you know, a really personalized or handwritten feel, make sure that guests feel kind of seen as individuals? Yeah, the letters. You know, it's funny, we actually did that for like a really, really small intimate wedding back in 2018. And it was super thoughtful. But I think the distinction with things like that is, is it thoughtful because you genuinely have something to say to every person in the room?

13:34Or is it again, just something that you've seen done. So you think you also need to do it. So I think there's just ways to kind of think about it as a couple, you know, maybe there's a cocktail that you and your fiance had on your first date. And that's something that you put on a bar menu and you have a little story with it or on a cocktail napkin, like Negroni and like, you know, our first date at XYZ bar, we, you know, both unbeknownst to us shared a Negroni. We want to share it with you. Like, I think things can be personalized without just having someone's name on them. I think there's just ways to share and kind of tell your story.

14:13Here's an example. We had a wedding, a couple that got married in Montana a few years ago. And we were with them, I think in LA somewhere, like having drinks. And they were telling us like, every time I was a couple, and they had been together for a while, but they were like, every time as a couple, you know, we mark kind of big milestones by getting a tattoo together. And we were like, wait, say more. What do you mean? And they're like, you know, just like a tiny tattoo. It's the date, it's a letter, the location, you know, something like that. And we were like, you guys, we have to do tattoos at the wedding.

14:44Like we have to do this. And they were like, yeah, we should do this. And so we brought in a local tattoo artist that, you know, they talked to and they loved. And at the end of the night, you know, in the reception, in the tent with the band and music and dim lighting, we had the tattoo artist there. And we were like, maybe a couple of people will do it. Maybe no one will do it. We knew they were going to do it because they wanted to have that memory. The line was through the roof. We had to have the tattoo artists come back the next day to the brunch because so many people, including their grandma, got a tattoo.

15:17So there's so many different ways to make things personal. I think it just comes when you least expect it. and you're not going to get to that place of really making something personal if you're just looking at what other people did to make it personal. Like you have to take a step back, talk with your team, talk with your partner, talk with your even family and friends and see like, when you guys think about us, what do you think about? You know, somebody might say like, well, you guys always celebrate everything with a tattoo and there's ways to kind of put those layers into things.

15:50Kat Collings:I want to also talk about florals. Obviously that's a huge part of any wedding production. And it feels like we're starting to move away from like the standard for arrangements as like centerpieces of the table. And I'm curious what trends you're seeing. It's one of those things that we come back to in the very beginning. And we ask people like, is investing in floral really important to you? I would say nine times out of 10, most people say yes, but we have to also sit down and think about where the floral makes the most sense. If what has a top priority is working with an amazing culinary team or an amazing chef, and we're doing this huge family style meal, we don't have room for flowers down the table.

16:24So we're shifting priorities from the go. But I do think flowers are definitely becoming like more architectural. I think instead of filling every surface with blooms, designers are really working with shape, with scale, with movement, negative space. And I think florists are also realizing this too. It's like sometimes the absence of flowers almost feels even more luxurious. And I think they're also getting really good at editing. And I think just with today's climate and economy, like they have gotten really expensive. I mean, it's no one's fault. It's just where we are. But I think people are also understanding that.

17:04And the labor is really, really intense. And a lot of these weddings are taking place in very remote locations. So I think people are also just working from a really like practical standpoint. And I think, you know, the florists we're so lucky to partner with are really mindful of what they can get, where they're getting it from. Some people, sustainability is really important to them. So just kind of moving through all of those different things and then getting to a place that feels good for everyone.

17:33Kat Collings:Do you have any tips for how to make a big impact with florals, kind of making the most, I guess, of whatever budget you're working with? As much as like, especially on Instagram and stuff, you're seeing like big installations and flowers hanging from ceilings and all of that. I mean, for us, it always comes back to ceremony. I think it's usually the most important, impactful part of everybody's day. So I think we like to really put funds there. If you're in a position where you do have a cocktail hour and it's in another location, you know, most florists, although there's like a small fee involved with just the labor of it, will move ceremony flowers into like repurposing them at the after party or maybe at the stage portion of the band or like an entrance to, you know, a ballroom or a tent, wherever your dinner reception is.

18:21And I think people understand that it helps. It's not wasteful. It's nice. So I think there's ways to get creative. And I also think a lot of times if maybe you just have something a little bit more simple on the tables, but a really big, beautiful entrance piece, it's like when you walk into a hotel lobby, they have like this beautiful, amazing in our world, we call them bangers, like a big, huge banger of a floral arrangement, right when you walk into your reception area, it makes a huge statement. The lighting on it's absolutely beautiful. That's a focal point that people really remember. And then when they get to their table, everything else is beautiful and food is starting to be served and music is playing.

19:00I just don't think people think about it as much as people think they think about it.

19:04Kat Collings:In terms of tablescape stuff, I feel like a trend we've been seeing in the fashion girl wedding genre is the food on the table as decor. Tomatoes, I feel like, are popular. Where are we going from here? Because I feel like we've seen this. We have. We've seen it. I think for us, we're usually putting food on the table if it's something that people eat. So I think for us, it's like a pre-ditter nosh is always a great way, especially, again, if you're having a family-style meal, you've worked hard on developing this beautiful menu. You're doing breads and cheeses and olives and things like that in beautiful vessels on the tables.

19:37I think that's great. I think in some instances, You know, we had a wedding in Hawaii just a couple of months ago and our floral designer is incredible and does a great job with like local things. You know, she used lava rocks and, you know, dried palms and things that are local to, you know, fruits in Hawaii and stuff that weren't actually ripe yet. So they didn't give like, oh, here's a cup papaya on the table. Just a little bit more interesting than that. But where I see things going, like in terms of tablescapes is things that just feel like a little bit more collected and assembled versus feeling like they were picked out from like one rental catalog.

20:20So like if you think about it, even like related back to fashion, it's like mixing like something contemporary with something vintage. you know, also really leaning into working with local artists. Like we just did a wedding in Spain and you know, we had someone make candles from the region and they were like the star of one of our shows. There was very minimal floral on the table. It was all these handmade Spanish candles. So I think just thinking about where you are, how you can support a local artist or the local economy, people can say whatever they want about Etsy. There's incredible artists on Etsy from all over the world that you can get in touch with.

20:58And with enough notice, they can do really incredible things. And again, it just doesn't feel like, you know, a point and click from a rental catalog. It feels like very collected and very beautiful.

21:09Kat Collings:Okay. Wait, one more question about flowers. Got to talk about the bride and bridesmaids bouquets. I think most recently the big celeb wedding that comes to mind is Dua Lipa and she had more minimalist bouquets. Where do you see like bridal bouquet trends going? Brides are, you know, putting so much into their own fashion that instead of having this massive bouquet that's heavy and over the top and there's ribbon trailing and things spilling out, like we really are going back to something like minimal, really simple. I mean, in the spring, you know, people always are going for Lily of the Valley.