It's Wedding Season! This Year’s Biggest Bridal Trends

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0:17This is The Run-Through. I'm Chloe Mal, and it is the first day of New York Bridal Fashion Week. And I sort of feel like this is the beginning of spring wedding season. You know, it's starting to be the buds are on the trees, which means ladies are thinking about their summer wedding dresses, whether they're brides or guests. And we thought, what a perfect time to bring in two of my colleagues to talk all things weddings from very different perspectives of the aisle. No pun intended. Naomi Elise is getting married this summer. And Elise Taylor is our resident wedding expert. and we are going to hear about how both of them are approaching this wedding season and what we should be looking out for.

1:05Naomi is our senior fashion editor and Elise is our senior living writer. So excited to be here. Yes, thanks for having us, Chloe. So, first of all, what is Bridal Fashion Week? Because I feel like it's not really on my radar and I want to know whose radar it's on. Well, I mean, Naomi's the fashion editor, but I will start a little bit, which is, you know, just like runway collections, bridal collections, too, have a season where they are shown to prospective customers, to prospective buyers, to nowadays the internet. So people can, you know, see what they could be wearing to their weddings. And I think bridal fashion— It's all wedding dresses.

1:47It's not guest dresses. It's all not guest dresses. And for, you know, Brides actually makes a lot of sense because it takes so long to order a dress that sometimes this like lead time to see what's out there is actually very, very helpful from a consumer standpoint. And, you know, I wish on our end we had more time to spend in Bridal Fashion Week. We don't necessarily get the opportunity to really, you know, visit these showrooms and go to the shows during Bridal Fashion Week. We used to have an editor that was specifically focused on bridal. Oh, really? She used to love bridal and she would take on the bridal market.

2:25Wow. As we're getting more and we're seeing so many women looking towards different designers and not just bridal designers for their wedding gowns, I do think it is important that we think about incorporating that back into our role and making the time to spend during Bridal Fashion Week. Yeah, especially just for a lot of women, it is kind of this like big ticket item purchase. And people do spend a lot of money and a lot of fun on their wedding dresses. And so a lot of care is made to this design. There is a reason, you know, the Chanel eau couture show always ends with a Chanel bride. And because they know that this is something women spend on.

3:03The least amortized purchase of all time.

3:09Okay, are these designers mostly only wedding designers or is there now more of a mix of designers that also do ready-to-wear or, you know, made-to-order doing bridal? Yeah, I've been seeing a mix. I'm sure you're seeing a mix. Like Taylor Fletcher is doing a whole bridal appointment this time around, which is exciting because they see how big of a market that is. And, you know, there's a lot of money in it. Yeah, and that's what I was going to say, which is that people spend on wedding dresses. And a lot of designers, what we're seeing, are not necessarily doing, like, the big princess wedding gown.

3:46And that takes, like, a lot of time. And you have to have a very, you know, developed atelier to kind of execute those designs. But doing white dresses that kind of surround all the other events. Stodd is a very good example where they launched a collection, not of wedding dresses, but here's what you wear to, you know, your rehearsal dinner. Your wedding suite. Yes. Your wedding trousseau. Here's what you wear to the day after brunch. If you're having a pool party, like, you know, here's a cool white swimsuit. And so all these brands have identified that this is a huge market with a huge demand.

4:18So we're seeing a lot of designers who aren't traditionally bridal designers kind of entering this market. And then we're seeing a lot of, you know, traditional bridal designers just go all out. I do feel like that's been a shift in recent years that it used to be bridal designers did wedding dresses and some ready-to-wear designers did some wedding dresses, but it wasn't as much leaning into the whole weekend and outfitting the whole sequence of events of, you know, 48 hours of being a bride. I remember I wore an Oscar de la Renta, like Broderie Anglaise, a sort of empire waist dress that was super simple and cotton.

5:00And the Oscar team were like, we didn't end up producing it because it wasn't fancy enough. Like people really wanted that. It was part of their bridal show, but no one wanted a dress that wasn't like a real wedding dress. And I feel like that's changed both for the wedding itself and for all the events around it. Yeah, it was interesting. I was doing a story with Moda Operandi, and they decided to do kind of this like wedding curation on their website. And they told me that their top search terms, one of them was white dress. And so, you know, I think there's also a shift in consumer where, you know, we've seen a lot of brides want to wear designs that don't feel like a traditional wedding dress.

5:42They want to do something different. They want to do something a little bit more edgy and fashion forward. And so they're kind of looking for just, you know, different takes on a white dress. And it's also fun to see, you know, brands who may have started more focused on ready-to-wear kind of dip their toes into bridal and then become more bridal-focused. Like Jackson Wiedehoff and seeing how immense success they have had in their bridal market. And, you know, I think I've had three friends who are Wiedehoff brides. Wow. And they love it. And then you go into Danielle Frankel, who, you know, specifically focuses on bridal, but it just feels so whimsical.

6:24And also she has such incredible designs that feel like something you've never seen before that makes you feel like, oh, if I'm a Danielle Frankel bride, it's very much the if you know, you know, I'm the cool bride. I do love seeing like the different personas of different designer brides. Like describe a Wiedershoff bride. I think a Wiedehoff bride is someone who is a little wacky. And when I say wacky, I mean it in the best way. Like it's someone who is just absolutely cool girl. It's sort of the cool girl, wackier Westwood bride. Yeah, I would say. Because it's sort of corseted and you get that sort of sculpted look.

7:00It's a little bit more theatrical. She's telling a story. She's not afraid of embellishments. She's not afraid of like having the tiniest waist and then maybe it poofs out into a big like taffeta moment. And that's when I think of the Widerhoff bride. It's someone that's kind of looking for something that's going against the grain. My good friend Asia wore Widerhoff, who we covered on, at least covered on Vogue Bridal. And she then made that look into three looks throughout the night. Oh, wow. She kept switching out the tulle from the bottom of her dress to make go shorter and shorter through the night.

7:36Oh, my God. I love that. And Wiedehoff I really love because I think there's just been this history of like the demure bride, right? Yeah. Which is that you're wearing this kind of angelic, you know, dress that's like pretty and, you know, like covers you with a Wiedehoff dress is loud. Yeah. And it's like. No, it's main character energy, which you should be on your wedding day. And it's like I'm wearing a corset. You know, a lot of the Wiedehoff dresses are short. and so it's kind of like I'm showing some skin and I'm looking great and it just happens to be white.

8:08We are going to take a quick break.

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9:01And we're back. Okay, Naomi, you are going to be a bride in a few months. Who are you working with on your dress? Tell us what this process has been like. Where did it begin? Where is it going to end? Oh, man. I'm so excited to chat about this because I think I've turned into that bride that talks about their wedding nonstop. It's like kind of insufferable. So this is the perfect platform for it. I'm so glad. This is like when I go to the doctor and I'm like, oh, I get to complain to you for 15 minutes about what's wrong with me. And it's beautiful because, you know, today is we're officially four months out, which is insane to even say.

9:36Wow. But I'm very excited. We're doing a wedding weekend and my main ceremony dress will be Christopher John Rogers. So fun. Who's a longtime friend of yours? A longtime friend. And, you know, it just made so much sense to work with him on this because I know he gets me and he gets my body. And also it feels very special to be able to do this with friends. And that's what we really went into planning our wedding. Does he do a lot of wedding dresses? He does. I think, you know, it's pretty much one-offs. He's done a few here and there, some that we featured on Vogue Weddings. Yes, I'm very excited because I've only run one Christopher John Rogers wedding dress.

10:14And that wedding did extremely well. In part, the couple was obviously very cool. but also in part because her dress was amazing. And it was in the, you know, Mexican jungle, and I just ran this beautiful shot of this, like, glowing Christopher John Rogers dress, like, you know, in the jungle. And it was green, right? It was like a marigold yellow. Yeah. Oh, wow. And it, you know, obviously celebrity weddings perform the best for Vogue, but I always love to see the weddings of non-celebrities, like what makes those pop, and this one really popped. And so I'm excited to run another one with you.

10:53Is your dress white? It is white. Okay. Probably more of an off-white. I'm still very traditional in that sense. But we're finding it in the happy medium between both of our styles and like what I want to go into the wedding. My wedding dress is inspired by Diana Ross's wedding dress. Okay. And there's an image online of her walking through. Yes, please. It's so iconic. She's walking through the street. She has this major lace veil over her silk dress and she's hiking up her dress to show her peep toe heels. And when I saw that image, I was like, that's very much the energy I want to give for my wedding day.

11:30Yes. And we'll be upstate. It's so fun. You know, but, you know, we're putting our CJR twist on it. We're still going to give a corset. We're going to have a drop waist moment. It's going to give a little body because I still want to be sexy on my wedding day. um but who else is on your mood board oh that's a good question it's been it's more about fabrics I've been looking a lot at lace a lot at crochet you know um Rachel Scott of Diotima is going to be doing my reception dress so we've been looking a lot at different ways to work in crochet and how to kind of tie in that back into the wedding and whether that's through doilies or through maybe it's even like a doily lantern.

12:13We're still working it out, but it's really going through, okay, what else, what type of fabrics do we want to do? Are you wearing a veil? Yes. I want a dramatic veil. Okay. I want the veil to be. Christopher doing the veil? He is doing the veil. I want it to feel like the train is coming from the veil and then I can hike up the dress because we're, you know, I'll have it for the ceremony and the cocktail party. What's been the most unexpected part of planning the wedding or unexpected challenge? How much a tent costs. Oh, it's crazy. A tent is insane. It really goes down to the cost and thinking, okay, we can go into this.

12:51Maybe we're leaning into our community. Maybe we're finding ways to cut costs. But there's just some that you can't get around. And a tent definitely being one and also staffing. And, you know, when we had gone into the planning process of our wedding, we were like, okay, we want to do 150. In my head, I was like, 150 is small. Like, how are we going to do that now? I'm like, thank God, because the budget, if we even went any bigger, it would have been too much. Elise, I feel like I hear that a lot about unexpected costs, like a tent, people not expecting that to cost so much. What do you think is an investment that you've seen is really worthwhile for your wedding?

13:31So I'm very glad that you are not skimping on the tent, because infrastructure is everything, especially because of weather. I've heard horror stories of people who maybe have tried to take a little shortcut on the tent and then it rains on their wedding day and their guests are freezing and the weather is encroaching from all sides. And so that's absolutely one thing you should not skip on is infrastructure. I'm definitely not the bride that thinks rain on the wedding day is good luck. I'm pretty much like I need it to be sunny and bright. Yeah. And I actually hear that from a lot of wedding planners where the most expensive thing about your wedding is not the flowers or the, you know, the food.

14:13It's always the infrastructure. A lot of couples have these visions of like maybe getting married in a backyard or a field. And then there's like very deeply unsexy things being like toilets and like electricity. And it's like, OK, you want to get married in a field? How are you going to have lights in that field? You know, there's very kind of like difficult structural things about having a wedding. And that's what it really starts to creep up. And I, you know, going into the wedding and, you know, as I told you, we were working with Hannah, our good friend, and we're going to be on her property.

14:44But even that said, we're still working on the infrastructure and learning as we go because we're like, oh, wait, we need to rent a toilet rental. We need to get transportation for people because there's no Ubers up there. there's so many things that can then add on that you may not even think of top of mind as you know as you go through the planning process you're like okay I need to add this I need to add that and then you're kind of like okay well where can I cut cross yeah no it's funny my my sister just got married and so I was doing the wedding planning with her and I remember her like looking at you know at her budget and she's like we need x amount for transportation we need buses to take people to and from the hotel to the venue.

15:27And that was so important where, you know, some like other kind of the more fanciful details had to go. And so I always like when I talk to couples who are planning their wedding and, you know, they're getting overwhelmed with cost, there's so many traditions in a wedding that we just do for tradition's sake rather than because we actually like them. And those are always the easiest things to cut. What's an example? So, you know, a really easy answer, at least for my sister, is like my sister hates cake. And so she's looking at her budget. She wants to have buses. She wants everyone comfortable.

16:00And she looks at how much she is spending on a cake. And she's like, and I don't even like cake. I don't really eat cake. And so she actually decided to forgo her cake. And we still had desserts at the wedding. They were desserts that she liked. And, you know, everyone had something sweet at the end of the wedding. But she didn't have to spend all this money on, I think there was 280 people at her wedding, a 280-person wedding cake when she didn't even like it. And that was a really easy cost cut for her. It might not be for some other couples. Another really popular thing I'm seeing is, honestly, like, invitations.

16:34I was going to say that. There is, look, if you love stationery and you love paper and you, you know, love, you know, watercolor illustrations, do it. Otherwise, there is no reason you need to send out a paper save the date especially. Like, just send an email. Yeah. A lot of times as a guest, I prefer an email save the date rather than like a paper save the date. You keep track of it. You keep track of it easier. If you want to send, you know, a full invitation for your wedding, go ahead and do so. But also if you don't want to do that either, you know, just send an electronic card and it will save you so much money.

17:08I know we opted to do, you know, a digital invitation, but we still sent a physical save to date because we have a few of our older family members that kind of need the physical one to get them to the website. But we were like, there's it was very a simple, simple idea, just a simple invite. And then we did a Polaroid of like us in a photo booth that we shot and just kept it very easy, something tangible that we could have, but not trying to break the bank. We printed it ourselves. I think we spent maybe less than$100 doing it. Oh, wow. That's awesome. And I will say no guest is going to go to a wedding and, like, their takeaway is the invitations.

17:47Right. You know, their takeaway is, like, the band, the food, you know, a lot of times, like, the fashion, how much fun they have. No one's going to be like, well, they didn't send a paper, save the date. Like, no one thinks like that. So if you need to cut cast, that to me is a very easy one. I want to talk about destination weddings because I feel like in the Vogue office there's a lot of mixed feelings about them. Certain colleagues have just sworn that they will never attend another destination wedding. Others have spent their entire budget on destination weddings. Elise, I feel like you traveled probably 100 ,000 miles to weddings in the last year.

18:23As the person who approves my time off request, Chloe knows more than anyone about my wedding journey. But it's an interesting macro trend we're seeing, which is that after the pandemic, there was this huge boom in destination weddings because the world was finally opening up. People wanted to celebrate. No one had been in a wedding in like two years because they'd all been so small or canceled. And so all of a sudden, destination weddings were all right. We're now kind of seeing the pendulum shift in that way. There's a couple of reasons for this. One is that everyone getting married now has been a guest in a million destination weddings.

18:59And so it feels kind of overdone. It feels expensive, people are realizing that. And then also, you know, for a lot of people, if you have a specific tie to a destination and it's important to you, you know, maybe you and your fiancé went on vacation there and that's where you fell in love. Like, that's like a beautiful story. I think some people are realizing that picking a destination just for a destination's sake is infuriating and also just not special. Like you don't want to go and get married at a location that you're never going to see again. And so many people are saying, OK, you know, let's think about getting married closer to home amongst, you know, venues or, you know, in my own backyard where I have all these memories and it feels personal.

19:48And it's also just easy to plan. Like, if you want to get married in Italy, you have to go to Italy multiple times to plan your own wedding. You should probably speak Italian. Right. And, like, that's actually quite stressful, which is if you get married in your hometown, like, you can stop by your venue whenever. That was a big factor when we were thinking about where we wanted to do our wedding. You know, in the beginning, I thought I wanted to get married on this hacienda in Merida in Mexico. And we kept going back and forth on when we were going to go see it. And then we finally picked a date to go look at it.

20:21And it was, I think, two summers ago. And then I looked up flights and I had to do a connecting flight or had to fly to Cancun and drive two and a half hours. And I looked at Blue and I was like, I don't want to do that. So I doubt my guests would want to do that. So let's actually rethink this a bit. And when the opportunity to do it at Hannah's estate came up, I was like, this just feels right. It feels we have a story here. Hannah's been in our lives for eight years. She's part of the reason why we met. And also, it'll be easier to plan. We have more control over it. And also, if I need a DIY, I can DIY whatever I need to do.

21:01And so having that option and, you know, being able to see, okay, this is, this would make our lives a little bit easier, especially with both of our demanding jobs. And it was a no brainer to kind of cancel out the idea of a destination wedding. And your wedding is supposed to be all about you. And so if you go to this far-flung destination with no connection, that's a little bit of a wedding factory because a lot of these abroad destinations are like, you're just going to be kind of like shoved in, shoved out. And then tomorrow someone else is taking your place. Right. And I also just wanted a place that no one else has done it before.

21:37That too. That too. Yeah. I Graham and I got married at my family's house in a very remote part of France. That's very hard to get to. And so I was like, well, the way to deal with that is to just make it basically an elopement. Like we only invited 10 friends each and our family, our immediate family. And that made it feel like a group trip, which was really fun. But it was absolutely like Elisa saying Graham basically planned the wedding. And if we didn't know people in that area, it would have been a complete nightmare, like arguing with the florist. Our port-a-potty was named Monsieur Toilette.

22:19And that was a whole thing of like how late Monsieur Toilette would stay. But, yeah, it really does, you know, obviously you can get an expensive planner who's based in Lake Como and people do that all the time. But it just does lose that personal touch. How did you guys get it down to 10 friends each? I mean, I still regret, like, people I didn't invite to the wedding. I think about it, like, once a month. But it was worth it in the moment, and it made me really enjoy it, but there definitely were, like, important people that I didn't. Like, I just invited a few college friends and just made it, like, people who were friends with each other.

22:57Also, in France, French people's answer to everything is pas possible, so you just have to keep arguing with them, which is really unfortunate. As someone who goes through wedding submissions all the time, I can tell you the chicest weddings are the ones that are deeply personal to the couple. And so that's why I always say, I'm like, you don't need to pick the most expensive venue that's splashy in a bra. Just like pick a venue where I can like have a sense of who you are. Yeah. More with Naomi and Elise after the break.

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