Wedding Trends of 2026: What’s Happening

Goodbye neutral minimalist, hello bold authenticity! 

Pollen in Love’s booth at the Seattle Wedding Show

Happy February, I hope you had a great Valentine's day! Hopefully you were able to use the venue Questionnaire in my last blog to find your venue and now you're ready to figure out your vibe. 

This month I want to explore 2026 trends. These trends I look at are based on research and the Seattle Wedding Show.

Be sure to check out these other blogs from 2 of the leading experts in all things wedding.

https://www.zola.com/expert-advice/the-first-look-report-2026

https://www.theknot.com/content/new-wedding-trends

Now let's get started. First things first, a reminder, just because it's trending doesn't mean it's for you. A repetitive theme I've been seeing has been authenticity over trends and traditions. Finding the things that bring you the most joy should be your first choice. More couples are feeling that their wedding will be a once in a lifetime experience and want to make every penny worth it. So why include a tradition that you don’t care about. Another option a lot of couples are doing is keeping the tradition, but remixing it into something more meaningful to them. A beautiful example of this is turning the bouquet toss into a bouquet dedication. Most being to the mother of the bride, giving her a small part of the day. How stunning is that?

Grand Event Rental’s booth at the Seattle Wedding Show

Another recurring theme is shareable experiences. In the world of TikTok and Instagram, having elements about your day that are unique and special that your guests will want to share in their next post. Things like choreographed dances, live painters, live streaming of your ceremony to all your friends, claw machines, cold sparklers during the first dance, and fire dancers have all been making more and more appearances at events. One thing that hasn’t gone away in this sharing is caring environment is unplugged ceremonies. It’s not unreasonable to ask your guests to put their phones away during the ceremony. You spend way too much money for your photos to have phones in your face, and having them potentially block the photographer from getting that perfect shot.  

The “Guinness” Tap Truck from The Tipsy Society

Ok, let's shift to colors. Over the last few years, neutral colors and soft tones have dominated the scene. Sage and burlap linens have been sold out at a lot of rental companies more often than not, but that is shifting. Bold color palette’s, ruby reds, and darker greens have been slowly beginning to dominate as the new primary colors. Walking through the Seattle wedding show, a lot of booths had red velvet linens, dark olive, hunter greens, and were only using the softer colors like dusty rose as accents. When chatting with another vendor, I mentioned that I was seeing a lot of reds, and they said “Yes! She is making a bold debut”.  

Stunning table scape from Alexander Party Rentals

So when it comes to décor, there will always be the classics, but a lot of couples have shifted to vintage all the way. Mixed china, vintage bottles as center pieces, and love throughout the ages tables are all making an arrival on the scene. The clean minimalist and modern elegance has been slowly making its way out but it will never fully leave because there will always be couples who prefer that vibe. If you want to follow the ever changing trends, bold and vibrant are hitting the scene hard. When making your plans, be sure to do a mock set-up so that overly bold design doesn’t turn into a cluttered mess. 

Lombardi’s Restaurant Co.’s booth at the Seattle Wedding Show

Now let's shift gears to before the event. AI has officially joined most conversations when planning. Planners and couples alike have been relying more and more on AI because you can enter exactly what you are looking for and it spits out information that used to take hours to find. Instead of scrolling forever on sites like Lemon8 and Pinterest looking for a good representation of your colors, you can type them into an AI platform and get the visuals you need to execute your ideas. 

AI generated picture I prompted for a client’s mood board

Also planning has shifted from it’s the bride’s day, to couples working together and making the day a strong representation of them blending their likes and lives together. Instead of the wedding planning being the most stressful experience a couple goes through, it's now seen as a relationship strengthener. It used to be the groom's saying, whatever you want is fine with me, and now we have brides making sure the groom has a say. It’s all about the partnership. 

What new trends are you seeing and planning to use for your day? Drop it in the comments! 

Make sure to come back next month where I will be exploring how to understand your vendor contracts.