I never really thought about being timeless…i‘m happy to live in the here and now…or even trying to be forward thinking, rather than timeless, which often seems more neutral and bland than anything. I like looking back at pics of the big “butt bow” and hideous matching bridesmaids dresses I wore in my 20s, the strapless and deep V trends. The Jordan almonds and photo booths. The burlap and boho and art deco trends.
that said, i get this is just a fun thought exercise and discussion :) i could see something like a pearl necklace or diamond earrings being “timeless.” The trio of fish-chicken-beef options seem classic, as well. A bacon wrapped scallop is the quintessential cocktail hour food. A white wedding cake with simpler decoration is pretty timeless (But I’m loving the colorful options I’ve seen lately!)
It’s funny you say that about fish-chicken-beef because in my head, “classic” was that you offered one dish (chicken for most people, filet mignon if you were rich) and the concept of having people select a dish when they RSVPd is fairly new!
Thank you, finally a comment with lots of fun little details that definitely seem like a long-term aspect of most weddings!
Pearls and diamonds have definitely been precious and beautiful ever since they were discovered and I will eat my hat if they ever become unfashionable! Sure we might opt more and more for sustainable and humane options, maybe they'll all be artificial, but the style and the function will stay.
Fish-chicken-beef will take a long time to phase out and become fully subsitutes or vegan meals. Maybe never.
I don't think I've ever seen a bacon wrapped scallop but I've only been to a couple Finnish weddings and that's it, so globally or in the US that's probably a long-term classic not easily replaced.
Wedding cake in some format will hopefully never disappear :)
charcuterie and tacos and food trucks seem to be very trendy right now. I wonder if they’re here to stay or if our grandkids will be like, “haha check out the wood burning pizza truck! So 2020s!“ :P
it‘s interesting to see, in America at least, I’ve been seeing more cupcakes and donuts than cakes lately. Less expensive, easier to serve
It's been a while since I've been served an actual piece of cake at a wedding. Even sheet cake. Alternate desserts are just so huge right now! And I get it, I don't want to have someone slicing and serving cake when we can just have grab-and-go desserts like cupcakes.
That being said, if someone DID serve cake, it wouldn't seem out of place to me.
That's funny about the charcuterie since here in France, that's as normal as having bread. So here it's probably quite timeless but in the States, probably just a trend.
I think it would be very rare to see tacos at a European wedding tho, even in 2024!
Wedding cakes are soooo expensive and it seems nowadays that everyone wants options, so you cannot just serve everyone the same entre, main and cake. Everyone needs to get to choose their favorite protein at least and have a big selection of desserts.
So paying 1k for a wedding cake for everyone AND having other assorted desserts seems like a waste, who eats 5 different desserts anyways.
I'm thinking to have a dessert buffet where one of the cakes is bigger than others and has 2-3 tiers and couple flowers on it, and we will cut that but not everyone is gonna have a slice of that exact cake because for sure some people prefer chocolate cake or little patisserie puffs over a basic strawberries & cream tier cake.
If you’re in France you need to have a ton of desserts…French pastries are the best!!! I was in Strasbourg for work for a few months and thank god I did all that walking or I’d be a million pounds heavier! :P and yes! You all know how to make a delicious cheese and meat spread! I miss the roblochon! (I can get it here, but it’s so much more expensive! lol)
I don’t think it matters. Every wedding is going to look like the decade it happened in no matter how you try to make it look “timeless.” Even if you do the most basic/classic decor I feel like I could still look at a photo and tell whether a wedding happened in 2024 or 2012.
I'm not looking for such a level of perfect indistinctness that it would totally stump everyone in a photo.
Just thinking about individual aspects that seem like a decades long classic. Like the bride wearing white and having a bouquet that has roses in it vs. bride wearing a cottage core dress with flowers on it and holding a single sunflower or a bunch of dry pampas.
Obviously an ivory A-line dress from the 1970s, 2010s and 2030s is going to look different but they would still share the general idea of having an ivory A-line dress in the first place.
Ok why is everyone so bent out of shape over this??? I thought the comments would be so fun on here and instead you seemed to have gotten slandered for "wanting a timeless wedding" when that's not even what you said. And to add - there are so many posts on here asking what people can do to make their weddings less trendy and more timeless... Weird.
I think timeless is a little... less colorful? I absolutely adore the wildflower look and that almost made me want to change my wedding date but I have a winter wedding dream! BUT I think this is a trend, and see it going away in the near(ish) future.
I think as far as dresses go, I don't think you can have one that's "timeless". I think regardless of what you get, it can and will be nitpicked down the road. It's inevitable that styles change over time! Time;ess rings I would say would be more solitaire in style, simple band with the diamond. I could see the emerald cut being more of a trend, but not sure I'd go as far as to say it wouldn't be timeless.
I think simple = timeless. The less stuff, the less there is to critique later on in life!
That said, I think it's fair to want your wedding to be timeless. To not look back and think ew... what was I thinking! But on the flip side, I also think it's fun to look back and see the timeframe in which one was married. Like looking back at my aunts wedding with her massive 80's hairstyle and the shoulder pads on her dress, and the horrid ruffles 😂
Agreed! Even on the recent posts about current trends there are so many people saying "everything is trend and nothing is timeless, just pick what you like" which is true, but why can't we have a fun discussion about it!
If someone is asking for advice for their specific wedding that's a valid thing to say, but for these general discussions it doesn't really add anything.
Also I agree with you that simpler is more timeless. The only exception I can think of is maybe the style of dress that Grace Kelly and Kate Middleton had: long sleeved lace isn't necessarily simple, but those two proved that the style is still beautiful across decades.
The hard part is what is a brief trend vs what is a transition. Aka mismatched/small/no bridal parties, long vs round tables, having a cake at all, etc. Will those seem outdated in the future, or will matching bridal parties and round tables just seem *extra* dated as we are fully transitioning away from them?
I will say the brides of the mid 1980s who had Princess Diana style dresses did think of those as classic - what could be more classic than something a princess-to-be was wearing??
Yeah Idk, the vibes are really not vibing here today! There are so many discussions about trends but now that I'm asking what's NOT a trend, suddenly EVEYRYTHING is a trend! It's weird because if people are truly secure and happy with their trendy choices, why are they getting negative/defensive if a hypotethical wedding would not include those things?
I agree with you that simple things are more timeless and "classy".
Clothes fashion is definitely a tough one! Mens' suits will be looser or tigher and ties will be narrower or wider, but a suit is still a suit. Women's clothes change sooo much more. Althought I feel like the fashion industry has started to recycle the same stuff so maybe we will just go in a circle from 70s-80s-90s-00s-10s and back to 70s again and never evolve to those cool graphic silver sci-fi outfits we see on futuristic movies :D
I'm glad someone said it - this sub seems to get so negative about things! OP wasn't disparaging current trends at all, and it's a common topic to discuss what's "classic/timeless" vs "trendy/dated." Sheesh!
I totally agree with you that simple is your best bet for a "timeless" aesthetic. Minimal, clean, black & white.
(And that's coming from someone planning a multicolor wildflower aesthetic!)
This sub has always sucked. Seriously. The people on this sub are so bizarre. It’s one of the worst that I’m on. I also thought this was a fun, interesting post and I’m shocked to see all these people with their pantries in a twist.
I think some of the pushback you're getting here is the due to how your post and replies conflate concepts like "timeless," "classic," "classy" (a very fraught term!), and "fancy." Totally get that you started the discussion in the spirit of fun! But it implies that the group setting the template are wealthy midcentury WASPs.
To play along with the exercise though, when couples in my area aspire to be "timeless" in the way you're driving at, they go for: white florals; lily of the valley bouquets; long sleeves and a boat-neck (maybe copying the British royals?) gown; church ceremony followed by hotel ballroom reception. No horses in sight -- it reads as too cosplay. Plain invitations on heavy cardstock, with hand calligraphy.
Yeah I'm starting to see that people here take my word choices very seriously or maybe I'm just not expressing myself well enough. English is my second language, after all.
For me, none of those terms seem negative or "better-than-thou". I just mean, stuff that's "always" gonna be stylish/chic/not raising eyebrows and has a steady popularity, instead of being really overdone for a few years and then replaced.
I should have probably mentioned that I've been to exactly 2 weddings as an adult and maybe 2 as a child and all of these in Finland. Other than that, my ideas of "basic traditional mainstream weddings" are from American TV shows or British royals or someone's parents' wedding albums. And yes, I'm from Finland which is probably one of the whitest places on earth so obvs my already limited wedding experiences are all white.
Horses only work in the countryside, I would definitely cringe if there was a rustic horse carriage in a Manhattan wedding 😂
I'm getting the feeling that European weddings might be a bit more outdoorsy / in the nature / out of the city. Maybe because our streets are narrow and buildings are old and small compared to the huge halls in the US 😅 So some of the stuff that for Americans would feel fake/cosplay, fits quite well in those cute little towns that look like they're straight from a storybook.
Can't speak for all European countries ofc!
In Finland, I'm not sure if there is a hotel with a "ballroom" anywhere. Probably in Helsinki, for big conferences and what not. It's not very common to have a wedding at a hotel, I think. There's a lot of renovated barns and lake houses and communal rooms of the church (in another building near the church) that can be used (those are rarely cute tho).
Again, I haven't been to many weddings even in Finland, so my stats might be super warped 😅
But I think those who set the norms were indeed wealthy mid century WASPs. And so? And I say that as someone without a WASP bone in my body. I see no reason not to aspire to that. As opposed to what else?
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If you are attracted to that aesthetic, that is totally your prerogative! Other people might aspire to a different aesthetic (say, one that communicates more egalitarian or countercultural ideals). I do think that there is a difference between describing a norm in a sociological or anthropological way, and advocating for a norm as somehow innately, universally, transcendently aspirational. Treating those as interchangeable might be what is making people respond so negatively in this thread.
There’s nothing non-egalitarian about simple cut white lace dresses and pearl necklaces, though. As you say, those are simply different aesthetics.
Among the wealthy WASPs I know, social norms have evolved with the times - which is a good thing. Instead of Mr and Mrs Robert Jones, it’s Mary and Robert Jones - or for that matter Matt Smith and Robert Jones as a couple. No one blinks an eye at that. (Now there are social circles where Matt and Robert as a couple are “controversial” - but those are generally the left-behinds, that no one was taking social etiquette/manners/style advice from in the first place.)
If you choose what you like because you enjoy it and not because it’s what other people say you should like, you won’t find the photos cringy at all.
My first wedding was twenty years ago. There’s really nothing about the photos I find cringy (other than my ex-husband and ex-in-laws!) I still think my dress, flowers, etc. were beautiful.
I'm not looking at this as a way to plan my own wedding!
Just thinking of weddings in general.
I hope nobody finds their own wedding photos cringy but it doesn't mean that some trends don't die off or that our personal or collective tastes wouldn't change :)
This is such a weird, specific list of literally current trends for a Western white wedding. Natural matte makeup?? I mean sure, a time traveller would be less shocked by natural makeup than a bold makeup because it looks most similar to their own era, but that doesn't make it timeless. And a lot of this list just feels negative towards whatever OP thinks is modern and "trendy" - no embellishments, no color, no photo filters or props, no modern music for first dance, no modern car (only old car or horse carriage lmao??). What's with the focus on old and antique? And DJs aren't classy apparently 🙄 Literally a new money's old-money-wannabe wedding.
Wait so at the same time you think my list is "literally current trends" but also an attack towards current trends?
Please make up your mind.
Natural makeup is more timeless because it's always been around and it mimicks what a face normally looks like, no matter what the current style favors.
Modern music (including a DJ playing modern music) and a modern car would immediately set the wedding in the current year.
I didn't say DJ is not classy, just that having an actual live band is \*more\* classy.
And this is not a list of rules for anyone, just my personal guesses of stuff that is traditional and basic enough to always be an option, rather than being super popular at one point and then totally gone a few years later.
Feel free to share your ideas of timeless bold makeup, timeless embellishments, timeless color, timeless photo filters and props, timeless modern music and timeless modern cars.
No I think you have a very negative perception of what you consider to be current trends, and you've accidentally listed actual trends while insisting they're timeless and non-trendy.
> This is such a weird, specific list of literally current trends for a Western white wedding. [...] a lot of this list just feels negative towards whatever OP thinks is modern and "trendy"
If what you actually want to do is list common traditions across approximately the last 100 years of Western white weddings, then that's OK. But that's not "timeless".
Obviously nothing is timeless from the big bang to the end of times.
I meant stuff that has lasted/might last decades or even centuries.
I think you just woke up in a fighting mood today and decided to channel that to nitpicking my word choices when everyone else understood more or less what I meant.
I wish you the best, I hope you manage to find other posts that are more to your liking 😊
What a negative comment assuming things. I literally started with "just for fun". It's just interesting to think about how the culture and style of weddings evolves through decades and centuries and if there are aspects that would be familiar and look nice in any decade or generation.
I never said that I'm worried about anything for my own wedding or my wedding photos.
Are we not allowed to discuss weddings in general here, must everything be strickly for planning our own wedding?
Omg, OP, I'm so frustrated on your behalf. You never said this was for YOUR wedding or that you HATE trendy weddings. Goodness gracious. This sub will find a way to be negative even on the most simple posts.
To answer your question, though, I'm coming from the perspective of Midwest United States (and I know other cultures/regions/religions will be vastly different).
I'd say formal ceremony (in a church if religious), bride in a very simple pure-white dress and veil, 2-3 bridesmaids and groomsmen tops, matching bridesmaids dresses in a simple style and color, probably in an subdued tone (blues, greens, maybe black). Groomsmen and groom in black tuxes. A very young flower girl and ring bearer.
Hair and makeup are tough because I think those are often very "telling" of the time period. Simpler the better.
Reception: A ballroom with very simple décor, little to no signage, probably white roses and white candles. White tablecloths. Plated dinner. A father of the bride speech (and no other speeches). Wedding band for sure. No "extras" like the shoe game or dollar dance. A traditional guestbook.
And listen: I'm NOT having that wedding, or anything close to it! My wedding will probably get clocked as 2024-era immediately.
Thank you!! For the sympathy and getting what my post was about, and for all of your lovely descriptions of classic wedding things.
Honestly most of that sounds super nice and fancy and I would not be bored as long as everything is high quality: food, music, vibes, company.
What's a dollar dance?
Idk how clearly our wedding will look like 2025 but it will SCREAM "disney girl waited 10 years for the proposal and finally got her princess wedding and is giddy with glee in her poofy dress" :D
Maybe it's a Midwest thing, but a dollar dance is kind of a honeymoon fundraiser where guests can pay $1 to dance with the bride or groom, so you dance with a lot of guests rapid-fire to make money. Sometimes it's a competition on who can make more money between the bride and groom.
Ah I see, I think we used to have some money-making games in Finland back when people in the countryside were poor and they invited the whole town and probably nobody brought presents unless maybe some food etc.
I believe the "bride robbery" was one. The bestmen would dress up in masks or something and come in loudly and carry the bride away in the middle of dinner. Someone would then pass around a hat or something to collect the ransom to get the bride back.
We still have this at most weddings but usually the groom has to participate in some kind of game or do a task in order to win back the bride.
The bestmen are usually giving shots to the bride so the longer it takes to win her back, the worse her condition when she is returned 😂
Sometimes people steal the groom instead, or both at different times.
Sometimes the guests need to collectively "win" some kind of game, like a quiz or something, to bring back the bride.
I stole my best friend at her wedding by announcing that I'm not ready to give her up yet since we didn't even do our interrail (long running joke of an idea that we never went through with). I tied her hands with a ribbon and walked her out.
While we were out waiting with her, I read her something from a notebook but I don't remember what 🤦🏼♀️🤣 maybe some anecdotes from our past or funny advice for wives or something. And we just chatted a bit about the day.
The groom had do draw a pic of the bride, accentuating her best features. He gave her huge ...curves 😂 She is a petite slim, athletic woman tho 😅
I feel like the bride being a girly girl and loving it all a little more than the groom is also a timeless theme, lol
Not saying that there aren't many brides who couldn't care less but maybe they elope anyways so that doesn't really count as a wedding party staple
Ah yes, I should have included a wedding cake on my list, I doubt it will never become un-stylish to have a cake of some sort. Bridesmaids do seem a more recent and fluctuating thing. No flowers is surprising, I thought at least a little bouquet, even of wild flowers, would have been almost a must for a long time now!
Well now that's an interesting take on the future!
I doubt eloping will surpass having some type of party. People still celebrate birthdays and have funerals and baby naming ceremonies. People are social by nature and I hope we will always continue to gather to celebrate happy moments together.
Maybe where you live or in your family, but when I look at wedding pictures from my older relatives weddings, there was still quite a bit of planning which included a gown, bridesmaids/groomsmen, flowers, food (even if it was just cake), music, a big exit, etc.
Yeah I see your point. I guess you could be right, maybe a thousand years from now historians will mention that between 1800-2100 couples threw parties for their friends and families on the first day of their legal agreement of joining households.
That’s highly dependent on the socioeconomics. In my family, they were all simple affairs at a church, but in my husband’s family, they were getting married at the fanciest hotels in a major city 50, 60, 70 years ago - weddings that had all the trimmings of today. Bridal parties, extravagant flowers, white glove service, etc.
The Plaza Hotel in NYC and other similar hotels of that ilk in major cities didn’t just start doing weddings recently.
Our team has discussed both comments that were reported and agree that none of them constitute budget shaming. They were simply providing examples contrary to your statement, and do not constitute shaming in any way towards your grandparents.
You are welcome to modmail us to discuss further if you would like.
I could find plenty of articles in small town newspapers describing “society” weddings, the bride wore a dress of Alençon lace, the girls carried bouquets of gladiolus, the desserts were this and that … I could find those 100 years ago. I think grandma extrapolated from her own life but plenty of people paid plenty of attention to weddings years ago.
Because as I mention in another comment. There’s no such thing as a “timeless wedding” as weddings 50 years ago were wildly different than a wedding today. 50 years ago they were often cake and punch receptions, dresses were homemade and often had high necks and lace patterns (but almost doily lace). We didn’t have bridal parties, there weren’t centerpieces etc.
Who know what weddings will look like in another 50 years
You’re simply wrong about bridal parties not existing 50 years ago. I can show you pictures from my husband’s family at the Drake Hotel in Chicago from the 1940s where they most certainly had bridal parties, centerpieces, etc - most of the same trimmings as today. I can show you newspaper clippings from the 1930s saying so-and-so served as best man for his brother and other groomsmen were such-and-such and the couple will be honeymooning in New York before coming back home. All you need is a trip through old newspapers and this is all out there. Bridal parties are not new. That doesn’t mean everyone had them of course, but they aren’t a new invention.
I mean guests will have iPhones, smart watches, even certain accessories / fabric types are very “of the time”
It’s a nice thought experiment, but if your so caught up in having a “timeless” wedding you’ll probably just end up with a boring wedding that could be anyone’s
Idk if a classic "timeless" wedding would be any more boring and "could be anyone's" than a copy-paste millenial wedding in 2024 with all the latest hits and instagram & tiktok trends, those too could be literally anyone's wedding that year and in that generation.
Timeless aspects would be exactly the ones that people never get bored of so badly that it would be permanently replaced with something else that would make everyone happy for decades.
Like yeah a cake might be boring but is the whole Western population ready to eat funny colorful cupcakes or DIY ice cream sundays or crepes at every single wedding for the next 100 years? Probably not.
Is the couple not allowed to like classy things? Does every wedding need to be a theme party based on the hobby or interest or tv show they happen to enjoy at that exact age?
I don't even have a favorite color that I wouldn't have changed at some point in my life so any kind of "this is who I am" CV wedding will only reflect a snapshot of couple of my current interests, not me as a person.
I don't think my guests will need props around the wedding to tell them about my or my fiance's personalities, they know us and we will be there so they'll see us and interact with us and see our personality right where it is - inside us, not painted on the cake :D
Oh yes, can't stop technology!
But having phones or watches isn't really a wedding planning / wedding structure decision if you catch my meaning.
I'm not trying to imagine a cosplay of an old-timey wedding for the sake of some photos that are hard to place in a timeframe.
Just that I see many conversations here about what are the trends and what's overused and what will be "so 2024" that I wanted to try to name stuff that takes at least decades if not a century to disappear.
Why would personal touches need to be done in a trendy way?
It doesn't seem personal when everyone's "personal touch" is a neon sign of their names or that freaking pampas everywhere :D
And I don't necessarily mean timeless just towards the future, but even if you had a timetraveler from 10, 50 or 100 years ago to suddenly materialize at the wedding, what type of ...well, everything, would create the least culture shock or "wow THAT'S what they think looks good in this strange time??"
Oh and discussing Western weddings, obviously for example Indian weddings have their own timeless aspects.
I see what you mean with black and white photos, but "timeless" doesn't automatically mean "old" as it should also be timeless to the other direction. With technology, this is of course quite impossible so photo quality, people's phones, smartwatches, cars etc. will always reflect the time of the wedding.
But I would say that having photos of whatever the current best quality is and not using heavy edits would be the most timeless "strategy", even if the result of that will look different in different time periods due to the quality (and colors vs black and white).
If you take the literal meaning of timeless, nothing is.
What I mean is more like "the classic/standard, "no one will bat an eyelid" option that will always be present at a lot of weddings, spanning over several decades or even centuries".
If someone did ALL of their photography in b&w (now in the times of color photos existing), I would definitely be surprised. I don't imagine that ever becoming "the done thing" for over 10 years in a way that people find it boring and there are shorter "counter trends" to be more "personalised" and "different" by having COLOR photography instead.
Idk if this makes sense?
This is quite the challenge, because everything that we think of as “timeless” came from its own era, and just happened to stick around.
Also, a lot of what has already been mentioned is very Anglo-centric. A “classic, timeless” wedding in Kenya or China or Ukraine or Morocco or India would look very, very different from anything you’ve described.
I genuinely hope my grandkids find my wedding photos and think - what a cool time capsule! The same way I look at my grandparents’ wedding photo from 1956. We have to leave clues for the future anthropologists 🤣
I did add a comment right after posting that this is for Western weddings and I know that for example Indian weddings is a whole other story.
I would love for my kids to see our photos and think "wow, mom and dad look so happy and beautiful and like a prince and princess, their wedding album is like a fairytale book!" but I know it will also be a fairytale taking place in 2025, with people looking like they live in 2025 :D
But still, if I can avoid jumping on every single new thing just because it's a trend (instead of actually liking it for longer than 5mins), that would be great!
Since many of you seem to think I wanted MY wedding to be "timeless" and to have photos that will never age and that nobody would be able to place to 2025, I just want to clear up that this was not my intention and I was not looking for inspo for our wedding. Even if the whole Reddit would agree that green bridesmaids dresses and chocolate cake are the most timeless things ever, we already know what we like and we will go with that - trendy or not, timeless or not.
Although honestly, we seem to naturally prefer more traditional/classic/basic wedding stuff instead of the current trends and maybe that shines through my tone on the post, sorry if it came off as offensive against someone who likes to have fun with trendy and cool new stuff!
For our wedding, we want a classic, fancy and romantic "princess" wedding (well ok I added the princess part, haha) without it being stiff or fake or flashy/new money gone wild. We rented an old castle with a huge grounds (we are in France so there are plenty of little old castles). Even if the setting is fancy, we still want everyone to be comfortable, chill and act like themselves. We are not there to play in a historical film (or pose for a social media "movie") but it's still fun to go all out once in our life and give our loved ones the opportunity to dress as fancy as they want.
We are not avoiding trends for the sake of having photos that won't be recognizable as 2025, we just happen to like stuff that is more "traditional basic wedding" rather than "ooh I saw this thing on tiktok" or trying to surprise the guests with some unique spectacle or making it a theme party to show how much we love cats or star wars or legos or something. I guess we don't find a "regular wedding" as boring and "no personality" as Reddit does!
Maybe it's because we are one the first couples in our friend groups and families (in this generation, both are oldest of the cousins) to get married. So we are just not at all bored with all the basic traditional wedding stuff and don't feel the need to spice things up!
But of course everything we choose is from the current selection of things so for example our cake will be our favorite of the cakes that bakeries currently make and my dress is a 2024 version of the type of dress I like. And that's all fine! And if we come across a trendy new thing that we like, why not! I truly didn't mean to diss trends nor am I scared of having any.
Favors aren’t timeless - they are a trend - but I think they can be fun if executed well. Ditto with photo booths.
Trends that I don’t think will age well are signage (especially neon).
Timeless but seemingly non existent these days is classic calligraphy/engraving on a cream or white background. As evidence, Crane’s stationery - total blue blood - is now out of business.
Yeah I don't get elaborate favors. In my childhood, you got a little pouch of candies or chocolates and it was fun to keep them and have one from each wedding you've been to. My mom had like 7 of them saved.
Photobooths can be fun but I prefer either beautiful professional photos or fun action photos in the moment. Photobooths don't give the best quality and the photos will be fake/forced/on-purpose funny, not a lucky snapshot of a real fun moment.
White/cream stationary will always be pretty! With a pretty font that's hopefully still readable 😅
I never really thought about being timeless…i‘m happy to live in the here and now…or even trying to be forward thinking, rather than timeless, which often seems more neutral and bland than anything. I like looking back at pics of the big “butt bow” and hideous matching bridesmaids dresses I wore in my 20s, the strapless and deep V trends. The Jordan almonds and photo booths. The burlap and boho and art deco trends. that said, i get this is just a fun thought exercise and discussion :) i could see something like a pearl necklace or diamond earrings being “timeless.” The trio of fish-chicken-beef options seem classic, as well. A bacon wrapped scallop is the quintessential cocktail hour food. A white wedding cake with simpler decoration is pretty timeless (But I’m loving the colorful options I’ve seen lately!)
It’s funny you say that about fish-chicken-beef because in my head, “classic” was that you offered one dish (chicken for most people, filet mignon if you were rich) and the concept of having people select a dish when they RSVPd is fairly new!
Thank you, finally a comment with lots of fun little details that definitely seem like a long-term aspect of most weddings! Pearls and diamonds have definitely been precious and beautiful ever since they were discovered and I will eat my hat if they ever become unfashionable! Sure we might opt more and more for sustainable and humane options, maybe they'll all be artificial, but the style and the function will stay. Fish-chicken-beef will take a long time to phase out and become fully subsitutes or vegan meals. Maybe never. I don't think I've ever seen a bacon wrapped scallop but I've only been to a couple Finnish weddings and that's it, so globally or in the US that's probably a long-term classic not easily replaced. Wedding cake in some format will hopefully never disappear :)
charcuterie and tacos and food trucks seem to be very trendy right now. I wonder if they’re here to stay or if our grandkids will be like, “haha check out the wood burning pizza truck! So 2020s!“ :P it‘s interesting to see, in America at least, I’ve been seeing more cupcakes and donuts than cakes lately. Less expensive, easier to serve
It's been a while since I've been served an actual piece of cake at a wedding. Even sheet cake. Alternate desserts are just so huge right now! And I get it, I don't want to have someone slicing and serving cake when we can just have grab-and-go desserts like cupcakes. That being said, if someone DID serve cake, it wouldn't seem out of place to me.
Oh! Champagne toasts are timeless.
Oh yeah champagne is a staple! I would be flabbergasted if that just disappeared and never came back again. Good one!
That's funny about the charcuterie since here in France, that's as normal as having bread. So here it's probably quite timeless but in the States, probably just a trend. I think it would be very rare to see tacos at a European wedding tho, even in 2024! Wedding cakes are soooo expensive and it seems nowadays that everyone wants options, so you cannot just serve everyone the same entre, main and cake. Everyone needs to get to choose their favorite protein at least and have a big selection of desserts. So paying 1k for a wedding cake for everyone AND having other assorted desserts seems like a waste, who eats 5 different desserts anyways. I'm thinking to have a dessert buffet where one of the cakes is bigger than others and has 2-3 tiers and couple flowers on it, and we will cut that but not everyone is gonna have a slice of that exact cake because for sure some people prefer chocolate cake or little patisserie puffs over a basic strawberries & cream tier cake.
If you’re in France you need to have a ton of desserts…French pastries are the best!!! I was in Strasbourg for work for a few months and thank god I did all that walking or I’d be a million pounds heavier! :P and yes! You all know how to make a delicious cheese and meat spread! I miss the roblochon! (I can get it here, but it’s so much more expensive! lol)
I don’t think it matters. Every wedding is going to look like the decade it happened in no matter how you try to make it look “timeless.” Even if you do the most basic/classic decor I feel like I could still look at a photo and tell whether a wedding happened in 2024 or 2012.
I'm not looking for such a level of perfect indistinctness that it would totally stump everyone in a photo. Just thinking about individual aspects that seem like a decades long classic. Like the bride wearing white and having a bouquet that has roses in it vs. bride wearing a cottage core dress with flowers on it and holding a single sunflower or a bunch of dry pampas. Obviously an ivory A-line dress from the 1970s, 2010s and 2030s is going to look different but they would still share the general idea of having an ivory A-line dress in the first place.
I think the cottage core, puff sleeves and super ditsy flowers looks are all going to look super dated.
Ok why is everyone so bent out of shape over this??? I thought the comments would be so fun on here and instead you seemed to have gotten slandered for "wanting a timeless wedding" when that's not even what you said. And to add - there are so many posts on here asking what people can do to make their weddings less trendy and more timeless... Weird. I think timeless is a little... less colorful? I absolutely adore the wildflower look and that almost made me want to change my wedding date but I have a winter wedding dream! BUT I think this is a trend, and see it going away in the near(ish) future. I think as far as dresses go, I don't think you can have one that's "timeless". I think regardless of what you get, it can and will be nitpicked down the road. It's inevitable that styles change over time! Time;ess rings I would say would be more solitaire in style, simple band with the diamond. I could see the emerald cut being more of a trend, but not sure I'd go as far as to say it wouldn't be timeless. I think simple = timeless. The less stuff, the less there is to critique later on in life! That said, I think it's fair to want your wedding to be timeless. To not look back and think ew... what was I thinking! But on the flip side, I also think it's fun to look back and see the timeframe in which one was married. Like looking back at my aunts wedding with her massive 80's hairstyle and the shoulder pads on her dress, and the horrid ruffles 😂
Agreed! Even on the recent posts about current trends there are so many people saying "everything is trend and nothing is timeless, just pick what you like" which is true, but why can't we have a fun discussion about it! If someone is asking for advice for their specific wedding that's a valid thing to say, but for these general discussions it doesn't really add anything. Also I agree with you that simpler is more timeless. The only exception I can think of is maybe the style of dress that Grace Kelly and Kate Middleton had: long sleeved lace isn't necessarily simple, but those two proved that the style is still beautiful across decades. The hard part is what is a brief trend vs what is a transition. Aka mismatched/small/no bridal parties, long vs round tables, having a cake at all, etc. Will those seem outdated in the future, or will matching bridal parties and round tables just seem *extra* dated as we are fully transitioning away from them?
I will say the brides of the mid 1980s who had Princess Diana style dresses did think of those as classic - what could be more classic than something a princess-to-be was wearing??
Yeah Idk, the vibes are really not vibing here today! There are so many discussions about trends but now that I'm asking what's NOT a trend, suddenly EVEYRYTHING is a trend! It's weird because if people are truly secure and happy with their trendy choices, why are they getting negative/defensive if a hypotethical wedding would not include those things? I agree with you that simple things are more timeless and "classy". Clothes fashion is definitely a tough one! Mens' suits will be looser or tigher and ties will be narrower or wider, but a suit is still a suit. Women's clothes change sooo much more. Althought I feel like the fashion industry has started to recycle the same stuff so maybe we will just go in a circle from 70s-80s-90s-00s-10s and back to 70s again and never evolve to those cool graphic silver sci-fi outfits we see on futuristic movies :D
I'm glad someone said it - this sub seems to get so negative about things! OP wasn't disparaging current trends at all, and it's a common topic to discuss what's "classic/timeless" vs "trendy/dated." Sheesh! I totally agree with you that simple is your best bet for a "timeless" aesthetic. Minimal, clean, black & white. (And that's coming from someone planning a multicolor wildflower aesthetic!)
This sub has always sucked. Seriously. The people on this sub are so bizarre. It’s one of the worst that I’m on. I also thought this was a fun, interesting post and I’m shocked to see all these people with their pantries in a twist.
I think some of the pushback you're getting here is the due to how your post and replies conflate concepts like "timeless," "classic," "classy" (a very fraught term!), and "fancy." Totally get that you started the discussion in the spirit of fun! But it implies that the group setting the template are wealthy midcentury WASPs. To play along with the exercise though, when couples in my area aspire to be "timeless" in the way you're driving at, they go for: white florals; lily of the valley bouquets; long sleeves and a boat-neck (maybe copying the British royals?) gown; church ceremony followed by hotel ballroom reception. No horses in sight -- it reads as too cosplay. Plain invitations on heavy cardstock, with hand calligraphy.
Yeah I'm starting to see that people here take my word choices very seriously or maybe I'm just not expressing myself well enough. English is my second language, after all. For me, none of those terms seem negative or "better-than-thou". I just mean, stuff that's "always" gonna be stylish/chic/not raising eyebrows and has a steady popularity, instead of being really overdone for a few years and then replaced. I should have probably mentioned that I've been to exactly 2 weddings as an adult and maybe 2 as a child and all of these in Finland. Other than that, my ideas of "basic traditional mainstream weddings" are from American TV shows or British royals or someone's parents' wedding albums. And yes, I'm from Finland which is probably one of the whitest places on earth so obvs my already limited wedding experiences are all white. Horses only work in the countryside, I would definitely cringe if there was a rustic horse carriage in a Manhattan wedding 😂 I'm getting the feeling that European weddings might be a bit more outdoorsy / in the nature / out of the city. Maybe because our streets are narrow and buildings are old and small compared to the huge halls in the US 😅 So some of the stuff that for Americans would feel fake/cosplay, fits quite well in those cute little towns that look like they're straight from a storybook. Can't speak for all European countries ofc! In Finland, I'm not sure if there is a hotel with a "ballroom" anywhere. Probably in Helsinki, for big conferences and what not. It's not very common to have a wedding at a hotel, I think. There's a lot of renovated barns and lake houses and communal rooms of the church (in another building near the church) that can be used (those are rarely cute tho). Again, I haven't been to many weddings even in Finland, so my stats might be super warped 😅
But I think those who set the norms were indeed wealthy mid century WASPs. And so? And I say that as someone without a WASP bone in my body. I see no reason not to aspire to that. As opposed to what else? I
If you are attracted to that aesthetic, that is totally your prerogative! Other people might aspire to a different aesthetic (say, one that communicates more egalitarian or countercultural ideals). I do think that there is a difference between describing a norm in a sociological or anthropological way, and advocating for a norm as somehow innately, universally, transcendently aspirational. Treating those as interchangeable might be what is making people respond so negatively in this thread.
There’s nothing non-egalitarian about simple cut white lace dresses and pearl necklaces, though. As you say, those are simply different aesthetics. Among the wealthy WASPs I know, social norms have evolved with the times - which is a good thing. Instead of Mr and Mrs Robert Jones, it’s Mary and Robert Jones - or for that matter Matt Smith and Robert Jones as a couple. No one blinks an eye at that. (Now there are social circles where Matt and Robert as a couple are “controversial” - but those are generally the left-behinds, that no one was taking social etiquette/manners/style advice from in the first place.)
For sure! I was just attempting to answer your question of what else there might be to aspire to.
If you choose what you like because you enjoy it and not because it’s what other people say you should like, you won’t find the photos cringy at all. My first wedding was twenty years ago. There’s really nothing about the photos I find cringy (other than my ex-husband and ex-in-laws!) I still think my dress, flowers, etc. were beautiful.
I'm not looking at this as a way to plan my own wedding! Just thinking of weddings in general. I hope nobody finds their own wedding photos cringy but it doesn't mean that some trends don't die off or that our personal or collective tastes wouldn't change :)
This is such a weird, specific list of literally current trends for a Western white wedding. Natural matte makeup?? I mean sure, a time traveller would be less shocked by natural makeup than a bold makeup because it looks most similar to their own era, but that doesn't make it timeless. And a lot of this list just feels negative towards whatever OP thinks is modern and "trendy" - no embellishments, no color, no photo filters or props, no modern music for first dance, no modern car (only old car or horse carriage lmao??). What's with the focus on old and antique? And DJs aren't classy apparently 🙄 Literally a new money's old-money-wannabe wedding.
Wait so at the same time you think my list is "literally current trends" but also an attack towards current trends? Please make up your mind. Natural makeup is more timeless because it's always been around and it mimicks what a face normally looks like, no matter what the current style favors. Modern music (including a DJ playing modern music) and a modern car would immediately set the wedding in the current year. I didn't say DJ is not classy, just that having an actual live band is \*more\* classy. And this is not a list of rules for anyone, just my personal guesses of stuff that is traditional and basic enough to always be an option, rather than being super popular at one point and then totally gone a few years later. Feel free to share your ideas of timeless bold makeup, timeless embellishments, timeless color, timeless photo filters and props, timeless modern music and timeless modern cars.
No I think you have a very negative perception of what you consider to be current trends, and you've accidentally listed actual trends while insisting they're timeless and non-trendy. > This is such a weird, specific list of literally current trends for a Western white wedding. [...] a lot of this list just feels negative towards whatever OP thinks is modern and "trendy" If what you actually want to do is list common traditions across approximately the last 100 years of Western white weddings, then that's OK. But that's not "timeless".
Obviously nothing is timeless from the big bang to the end of times. I meant stuff that has lasted/might last decades or even centuries. I think you just woke up in a fighting mood today and decided to channel that to nitpicking my word choices when everyone else understood more or less what I meant. I wish you the best, I hope you manage to find other posts that are more to your liking 😊
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What a negative comment assuming things. I literally started with "just for fun". It's just interesting to think about how the culture and style of weddings evolves through decades and centuries and if there are aspects that would be familiar and look nice in any decade or generation. I never said that I'm worried about anything for my own wedding or my wedding photos. Are we not allowed to discuss weddings in general here, must everything be strickly for planning our own wedding?
Omg, OP, I'm so frustrated on your behalf. You never said this was for YOUR wedding or that you HATE trendy weddings. Goodness gracious. This sub will find a way to be negative even on the most simple posts. To answer your question, though, I'm coming from the perspective of Midwest United States (and I know other cultures/regions/religions will be vastly different). I'd say formal ceremony (in a church if religious), bride in a very simple pure-white dress and veil, 2-3 bridesmaids and groomsmen tops, matching bridesmaids dresses in a simple style and color, probably in an subdued tone (blues, greens, maybe black). Groomsmen and groom in black tuxes. A very young flower girl and ring bearer. Hair and makeup are tough because I think those are often very "telling" of the time period. Simpler the better. Reception: A ballroom with very simple décor, little to no signage, probably white roses and white candles. White tablecloths. Plated dinner. A father of the bride speech (and no other speeches). Wedding band for sure. No "extras" like the shoe game or dollar dance. A traditional guestbook. And listen: I'm NOT having that wedding, or anything close to it! My wedding will probably get clocked as 2024-era immediately.
Thank you!! For the sympathy and getting what my post was about, and for all of your lovely descriptions of classic wedding things. Honestly most of that sounds super nice and fancy and I would not be bored as long as everything is high quality: food, music, vibes, company. What's a dollar dance? Idk how clearly our wedding will look like 2025 but it will SCREAM "disney girl waited 10 years for the proposal and finally got her princess wedding and is giddy with glee in her poofy dress" :D
Maybe it's a Midwest thing, but a dollar dance is kind of a honeymoon fundraiser where guests can pay $1 to dance with the bride or groom, so you dance with a lot of guests rapid-fire to make money. Sometimes it's a competition on who can make more money between the bride and groom.
Ah I see, I think we used to have some money-making games in Finland back when people in the countryside were poor and they invited the whole town and probably nobody brought presents unless maybe some food etc. I believe the "bride robbery" was one. The bestmen would dress up in masks or something and come in loudly and carry the bride away in the middle of dinner. Someone would then pass around a hat or something to collect the ransom to get the bride back. We still have this at most weddings but usually the groom has to participate in some kind of game or do a task in order to win back the bride. The bestmen are usually giving shots to the bride so the longer it takes to win her back, the worse her condition when she is returned 😂 Sometimes people steal the groom instead, or both at different times. Sometimes the guests need to collectively "win" some kind of game, like a quiz or something, to bring back the bride. I stole my best friend at her wedding by announcing that I'm not ready to give her up yet since we didn't even do our interrail (long running joke of an idea that we never went through with). I tied her hands with a ribbon and walked her out. While we were out waiting with her, I read her something from a notebook but I don't remember what 🤦🏼♀️🤣 maybe some anecdotes from our past or funny advice for wives or something. And we just chatted a bit about the day. The groom had do draw a pic of the bride, accentuating her best features. He gave her huge ...curves 😂 She is a petite slim, athletic woman tho 😅
It’s not Midwestern necessarily. It’s certain ethnic groups.
I feel like the bride being a girly girl and loving it all a little more than the groom is also a timeless theme, lol Not saying that there aren't many brides who couldn't care less but maybe they elope anyways so that doesn't really count as a wedding party staple
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Ah yes, I should have included a wedding cake on my list, I doubt it will never become un-stylish to have a cake of some sort. Bridesmaids do seem a more recent and fluctuating thing. No flowers is surprising, I thought at least a little bouquet, even of wild flowers, would have been almost a must for a long time now! Well now that's an interesting take on the future! I doubt eloping will surpass having some type of party. People still celebrate birthdays and have funerals and baby naming ceremonies. People are social by nature and I hope we will always continue to gather to celebrate happy moments together.
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Maybe where you live or in your family, but when I look at wedding pictures from my older relatives weddings, there was still quite a bit of planning which included a gown, bridesmaids/groomsmen, flowers, food (even if it was just cake), music, a big exit, etc.
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Many of the photos are from the 1950s, so about 70 years ago. Same with weddings from the 60s, though the hair and dresses were groovier.
I have a photo of a family member getting married in 1971 with a bouffant hairdo and a black mini dress. This relative was always ahead of her time!
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Sure bridal parties existed in the 1970s. I have pictures of my family members standing up for one another going all the way back to the 1940s.
Yeah I see your point. I guess you could be right, maybe a thousand years from now historians will mention that between 1800-2100 couples threw parties for their friends and families on the first day of their legal agreement of joining households.
That’s highly dependent on the socioeconomics. In my family, they were all simple affairs at a church, but in my husband’s family, they were getting married at the fanciest hotels in a major city 50, 60, 70 years ago - weddings that had all the trimmings of today. Bridal parties, extravagant flowers, white glove service, etc. The Plaza Hotel in NYC and other similar hotels of that ilk in major cities didn’t just start doing weddings recently.
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Our team has discussed both comments that were reported and agree that none of them constitute budget shaming. They were simply providing examples contrary to your statement, and do not constitute shaming in any way towards your grandparents. You are welcome to modmail us to discuss further if you would like.
I could find plenty of articles in small town newspapers describing “society” weddings, the bride wore a dress of Alençon lace, the girls carried bouquets of gladiolus, the desserts were this and that … I could find those 100 years ago. I think grandma extrapolated from her own life but plenty of people paid plenty of attention to weddings years ago.
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I’m not budget shaming. My family had all very modest weddings, church and then lunch or dinner for family members.
Why not? These details may not be important for you, but it's important for other people.
Because as I mention in another comment. There’s no such thing as a “timeless wedding” as weddings 50 years ago were wildly different than a wedding today. 50 years ago they were often cake and punch receptions, dresses were homemade and often had high necks and lace patterns (but almost doily lace). We didn’t have bridal parties, there weren’t centerpieces etc. Who know what weddings will look like in another 50 years
You’re simply wrong about bridal parties not existing 50 years ago. I can show you pictures from my husband’s family at the Drake Hotel in Chicago from the 1940s where they most certainly had bridal parties, centerpieces, etc - most of the same trimmings as today. I can show you newspaper clippings from the 1930s saying so-and-so served as best man for his brother and other groomsmen were such-and-such and the couple will be honeymooning in New York before coming back home. All you need is a trip through old newspapers and this is all out there. Bridal parties are not new. That doesn’t mean everyone had them of course, but they aren’t a new invention.
That's your opinion, which I don't agree with at all. I think some things do have a timeless feel to them.
I mean guests will have iPhones, smart watches, even certain accessories / fabric types are very “of the time” It’s a nice thought experiment, but if your so caught up in having a “timeless” wedding you’ll probably just end up with a boring wedding that could be anyone’s
Idk if a classic "timeless" wedding would be any more boring and "could be anyone's" than a copy-paste millenial wedding in 2024 with all the latest hits and instagram & tiktok trends, those too could be literally anyone's wedding that year and in that generation. Timeless aspects would be exactly the ones that people never get bored of so badly that it would be permanently replaced with something else that would make everyone happy for decades. Like yeah a cake might be boring but is the whole Western population ready to eat funny colorful cupcakes or DIY ice cream sundays or crepes at every single wedding for the next 100 years? Probably not.
If rather see a couples personality and what they enjoy instead of what they find classy and timeless
I think you can 100% do both! The speeches & the music are big ones, but also the details can be personalized and also "classic."
Is the couple not allowed to like classy things? Does every wedding need to be a theme party based on the hobby or interest or tv show they happen to enjoy at that exact age? I don't even have a favorite color that I wouldn't have changed at some point in my life so any kind of "this is who I am" CV wedding will only reflect a snapshot of couple of my current interests, not me as a person. I don't think my guests will need props around the wedding to tell them about my or my fiance's personalities, they know us and we will be there so they'll see us and interact with us and see our personality right where it is - inside us, not painted on the cake :D
Oh yes, can't stop technology! But having phones or watches isn't really a wedding planning / wedding structure decision if you catch my meaning. I'm not trying to imagine a cosplay of an old-timey wedding for the sake of some photos that are hard to place in a timeframe. Just that I see many conversations here about what are the trends and what's overused and what will be "so 2024" that I wanted to try to name stuff that takes at least decades if not a century to disappear.
The most basic and bare wedding with no details or personal touches would be the most timeless.
Why would personal touches need to be done in a trendy way? It doesn't seem personal when everyone's "personal touch" is a neon sign of their names or that freaking pampas everywhere :D
And I don't necessarily mean timeless just towards the future, but even if you had a timetraveler from 10, 50 or 100 years ago to suddenly materialize at the wedding, what type of ...well, everything, would create the least culture shock or "wow THAT'S what they think looks good in this strange time??" Oh and discussing Western weddings, obviously for example Indian weddings have their own timeless aspects.
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I see what you mean with black and white photos, but "timeless" doesn't automatically mean "old" as it should also be timeless to the other direction. With technology, this is of course quite impossible so photo quality, people's phones, smartwatches, cars etc. will always reflect the time of the wedding. But I would say that having photos of whatever the current best quality is and not using heavy edits would be the most timeless "strategy", even if the result of that will look different in different time periods due to the quality (and colors vs black and white).
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If you take the literal meaning of timeless, nothing is. What I mean is more like "the classic/standard, "no one will bat an eyelid" option that will always be present at a lot of weddings, spanning over several decades or even centuries". If someone did ALL of their photography in b&w (now in the times of color photos existing), I would definitely be surprised. I don't imagine that ever becoming "the done thing" for over 10 years in a way that people find it boring and there are shorter "counter trends" to be more "personalised" and "different" by having COLOR photography instead. Idk if this makes sense?
This is quite the challenge, because everything that we think of as “timeless” came from its own era, and just happened to stick around. Also, a lot of what has already been mentioned is very Anglo-centric. A “classic, timeless” wedding in Kenya or China or Ukraine or Morocco or India would look very, very different from anything you’ve described. I genuinely hope my grandkids find my wedding photos and think - what a cool time capsule! The same way I look at my grandparents’ wedding photo from 1956. We have to leave clues for the future anthropologists 🤣
I did add a comment right after posting that this is for Western weddings and I know that for example Indian weddings is a whole other story. I would love for my kids to see our photos and think "wow, mom and dad look so happy and beautiful and like a prince and princess, their wedding album is like a fairytale book!" but I know it will also be a fairytale taking place in 2025, with people looking like they live in 2025 :D But still, if I can avoid jumping on every single new thing just because it's a trend (instead of actually liking it for longer than 5mins), that would be great!
Since many of you seem to think I wanted MY wedding to be "timeless" and to have photos that will never age and that nobody would be able to place to 2025, I just want to clear up that this was not my intention and I was not looking for inspo for our wedding. Even if the whole Reddit would agree that green bridesmaids dresses and chocolate cake are the most timeless things ever, we already know what we like and we will go with that - trendy or not, timeless or not. Although honestly, we seem to naturally prefer more traditional/classic/basic wedding stuff instead of the current trends and maybe that shines through my tone on the post, sorry if it came off as offensive against someone who likes to have fun with trendy and cool new stuff! For our wedding, we want a classic, fancy and romantic "princess" wedding (well ok I added the princess part, haha) without it being stiff or fake or flashy/new money gone wild. We rented an old castle with a huge grounds (we are in France so there are plenty of little old castles). Even if the setting is fancy, we still want everyone to be comfortable, chill and act like themselves. We are not there to play in a historical film (or pose for a social media "movie") but it's still fun to go all out once in our life and give our loved ones the opportunity to dress as fancy as they want. We are not avoiding trends for the sake of having photos that won't be recognizable as 2025, we just happen to like stuff that is more "traditional basic wedding" rather than "ooh I saw this thing on tiktok" or trying to surprise the guests with some unique spectacle or making it a theme party to show how much we love cats or star wars or legos or something. I guess we don't find a "regular wedding" as boring and "no personality" as Reddit does! Maybe it's because we are one the first couples in our friend groups and families (in this generation, both are oldest of the cousins) to get married. So we are just not at all bored with all the basic traditional wedding stuff and don't feel the need to spice things up! But of course everything we choose is from the current selection of things so for example our cake will be our favorite of the cakes that bakeries currently make and my dress is a 2024 version of the type of dress I like. And that's all fine! And if we come across a trendy new thing that we like, why not! I truly didn't mean to diss trends nor am I scared of having any.
I totally got what you are going for!
Favors aren’t timeless - they are a trend - but I think they can be fun if executed well. Ditto with photo booths. Trends that I don’t think will age well are signage (especially neon). Timeless but seemingly non existent these days is classic calligraphy/engraving on a cream or white background. As evidence, Crane’s stationery - total blue blood - is now out of business.
Yeah I don't get elaborate favors. In my childhood, you got a little pouch of candies or chocolates and it was fun to keep them and have one from each wedding you've been to. My mom had like 7 of them saved. Photobooths can be fun but I prefer either beautiful professional photos or fun action photos in the moment. Photobooths don't give the best quality and the photos will be fake/forced/on-purpose funny, not a lucky snapshot of a real fun moment. White/cream stationary will always be pretty! With a pretty font that's hopefully still readable 😅