How to Have Your Perfect Holiday Wedding

The holidays are some of the most popular times for weddings. And why not? Families are already coming together, everyone is in a joyous holiday spirit, everyone has already taken off of work, and locations typically come pre-decorated for you. It’s perfect.

Holidays make it easy to pull together colors, décor, cuisine, dates, locations, and even the guest list. What’s great is, pulling from the inspiration given in this article, you can add your own twists and personal touches and really make it your own.

Go ahead and use purple and teal for your Christmas wedding. Hand out ornaments filled with silver tinsel and little charms to commemorate your wedding day.

Decorate a Christmas tree at your reception, hang garland and twinkle lights from the ceiling and play Christmas-themed games throughout the celebration. You could even play Christmas music to get everyone in the sentimental holiday mood. Only a warm fireplace could make it any better.

Here are some more inspired ideas and pictures that will hopefully spark your creativity and really get you excited for your big day.

Christmas

Let the natural joy of the holiday spread throughout your wedding with the scents of cinnamon, pine and warm apple treats. Welcome your guests with tall glasses of warm apple cider with apple slices and pine sprigs adorning your drinks. Fill your ceremony location with natural pine garland and/or pine trees in planter boxes for that holiday feel that will permeate the room with the feeling of Christmas.

Take advantage of the delicious red and white chrysanthemums, lilies, and dahlias in season at this time of year. Drape the ceiling of your reception with Christmas lights and the tables with warm reds and maroons. Candlelight and herbs on every table will really set the scene.

Offer a dessert bar covered in holiday treats like apple and pecan pies, cinnamon strudel, and peach cobbler. Think a full plated holiday dinner with all the trimmings, and leave your guests remembering the greatest party of their lives with little wrapped gifts to take home filled with peppermints or other Christmas-themed goodies. Make this a night to remember.

New Years

Celebrate with all of your closest friends and family members as you count down to the New Year and to your new life together. Silver and gold are usually the stars at New Year’s weddings, except for the bride and groom of course.

This would make for a fantastic cocktail or hors d’ oeuvres wedding. Spirits will already be lifted and ready for celebration. Greet guests with a glass of champagne and a party hat. You could even make this a fancy costume party where you pass out masks at the door for those who don’t bring their own.

Cover cocktail tables in silver fabric and create centerpieces of ribbons, sparkle, and white lilies to mimic fireworks. Drape your gorgeous gown in a beautiful fur wrap and carry a bouquet of brooches that will sparkle as brightly as you do walking down the aisle.

Adorn your bridal party in sparkly golds or deep vibrant colors. Say your “I Dos” as fireworks explode in an incredible backdrop to your vows on a balcony overlooking the big city, and kiss your new husband as the world celebrates with you.

Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day is a day of romance where couples all over the world celebrate their love for each other. What an amazing day to remember, for the rest of your lives, the day that you joined your lives together.

Red tablecloths would make for the perfect stage with pink and white flowers adorning your tables in big tall clear vases. Surprise your guests with pink in the most clever of places, like inside your cake, in their drink glasses and even under your wedding dress.

Decorate profusely with red and pink rose petals, giving sweet Valentine’s hearts in clear heart-shaped boxes for your wedding favors. For an even more romantic look to your event, drape your ceiling in white and pearl colored silk. Serve pink champagne and fruit punch alongside steak and seafood for your wedding fare.

Delight them with cherry cobbler and strawberry shortcake for dessert. Make your grand exit in a shower of sparklers as you depart in a white stretch limo full of red roses. Talk about romance!

St. Patrick’s Day

Being Irish myself, this is one of my favorite holidays. St. Patrick’s Day is all about shamrocks, leprechauns, typically drinking and singing Irish ballads, and of course, everything green. For no reason should you be forced to have a cheesy event where everyone has to wear a green hat.

Choose white or black for your tablecloths as a base for your wedding theme. Use white for a lighter, brighter, more casual event, and black for a more sophisticated, elegant evening event.

Instead of flooding your wedding with green, think subtle accents of color. Green napkins, beautiful white flowers with plenty of greenery, and even small shamrocks decorating your tables and your bridal bouquet would be perfect.

Down your ceremony aisle think shepherd’s hooks and small buckets filled with lilies, wildflowers and greenery to overflowing. Dress your bridesmaids in a variety of shades of green, and of course you will want a bountiful bar.

Easter

What a perfect time for an outdoor wedding! I can already see the ladies in their sundresses and the men in light colored suits. You could easily cover your tables in beige tablecloths and feature different colored napkins on each table. Decorations could be birds and their nests, Easter eggs of course, and other nature-themed items.

Line your ceremony aisle in pastel streamers, flowers in hurricane vases, and of course, piles of flower petals on each side.

For your reception, consider gorgeous chandeliers for a light but beautiful look. Fill your area with loads of tulips and Easter lilies in high and low vases, mirrors, and plenty of candlelight.

Keep the food light by offering a scrumptious salad bar to your guests, complete with pasta salad, fruit salad, potato salad, and great toppings for an amazing Easter fare.

For fun, why not have an Easter egg hunt for all of your guests to share in with the filled eggs as wedding favors?

Fourth of July

Just about everyone is celebrating the Fourth of July with fireworks, hotdogs, picnic blankets and bubbly. What could be a better theme for a wedding!

Red roses, blue orchids, red white and blue cupcakes for a wedding cake . . . Consider serving food commonly found at a 4th of July barbeque such as corn on the cob, grilled meat, and cut fruit.

If possible, hire a company to perform a fireworks show. Give the guests sparklers rather than rice to use as you are exiting the reception.

Organize your cupcakes into an American flag, wear some blue high heels with silver stars on them, or you could even create an amazing sash in alternating red, white and blue colors for your bridesmaids.

Get creative and add in some unique touches to make your Fourth of July wedding individual.

Halloween

Black bridesmaids dresses, black tablecloths with orange and red featured in your flowers and other linens . . . sound like Halloween? Make it even more exciting by inviting your guests to a costume party and decorating your reception site like a haunted house.

Skeletons, pumpkins, and cobwebs could be the main feature of your wedding décor. Candles will always add to the ambiance of the wedding and add a romantic touch.

In order to spice up the place card table, create an elegant board that says ‘Trick or Treat’ and have small black velvet pouches attached with string saying everyone’s name and table number. Inside the pouches can be different gifts such as small candies or lottery tickets.

Don’t just serve your typical cocktails at a Halloween-themed wedding. For festive drinks, serve Bloody Mary’s, a spiced rum apple cider or incorporate blood orange juice into your cocktails. Opt for a traditional wedding cake, but make it spooky with a white, spider-webbed pattern along one side. And, of course, no Halloween theme wedding is complete without a candy buffet.

Thanksgiving

It’s no wonder fall weddings are so popular. Changing leaves create amazing photo ops and with the summer heat long gone, your guests have a wonderful breeze to keep them cool and fresh.

Think tablecloths in tactile, visually intriguing materials like ruched silk, pin-tucked linens, and linens in twists or contours. For an in-the-moment look, mix subdued neutral colors with surprise pops of bright oranges, yellows, magentas, and even reds.

One stylish bride I’ve worked with chose beautiful beige linen napkins for her wedding with magenta undersides, which peeked just slightly when they were folded on the table.

Rather than a bunch of tiny votives, make a statement with thick pillar candles in rich hues like pomegranate and aubergine. Display them in beds of crystals for a glitzy, glam effect.

Add a seasonal touch to your ceremony by using shafts of wheat or bunches of grapes as aisle markers. Say your vows under a pergola covered with grape vines, even if you’re not in the wine country.

The holidays give us a great deal of inspiration when it comes to weddings. St. Patrick’s Day weddings say greens, sparkles, and four leaf clovers. Thanksgiving weddings say fall leaves, good food, a fire in the fireplace, and family. And even Fourth of July weddings say fireworks, barbeque, and red, white and blue.

BY using the holidays for your inspiration, your wedding is practically planned for you. Does this mean that you have to use the traditional colors and themes surrounding these specific days if you marry on one? Absolutely not. Your wedding is still yours to plan the way you’d like, but don’t the beauty of the holidays make it so easy!