Vintage Wedding Themes | Top Tips For Having A Vintage Wedding!

UPlanIt Limited
4 min readSep 2, 2020

“What kind of vintage wedding theme would you go for?”

Are you a lover of vintage styles? Do you enjoy the aesthetic of the past? Then a vintage wedding theme might be perfect for you! In a 2017 poll by Confetti, 11% of people had a vintage theme for their wedding, but that doesn’t even go into the different styles of vintage that people may have gone for. Vintage covers a lot of things these days; the online Cambridge English Dictionary defines vintage as “of high quality and lasting value, or showing the best and most typical characteristics of a particular type of thing, especially from the past”, which means even the 80s can be considered vintage now! Since it covers a lot of eras, we’re going to focus on the 20s, 40s, and 60s.

Credit Eliza Jane Howell

How about an art deco wedding? Art deco was an art movement in the 1920s that influenced architecture, clothing, and decorative arts; distinguished by streamlined simple and clean styles. You’d have all the atmosphere of the Great Gatsby without the actual prohibition laws! A 1920s style wedding often includes a colour palette of black, gold, bits of white, and sometimes a little green for added contrast. The groom all dressed up in a tuxedo and the bride in a gorgeous gown — it’s the epitome of glamour! It can make for a lovely spin on the classic black-tie wedding, with that little extra hint of history in your decor and music. You can add this style to your wedding stationery as well, with 1920s fonts such as Art Deco, Broadway and Metropolis, or you could search for local Calligraphers to hire and create your own lettering style to fit the era you’re passionate about. Then, to top it all off, you could add a couple of vintage props that fit the style (such as typewriters, cameras, feathers, etc), insert a good few classic cocktails into the bar menu (We love a good ol’ fashioned gin rickey!) and get the gorgeous glasses out to really emphasize the luxury of your vintage wedding!

If that isn’t to your taste, you could always look into the 1940s — it may be a wartime era but a lot of great romantic themes came from it! A 1940s wedding can be full of handmade treasures and details to complement the ‘make-do and mend’ mindset of the time. Style-wise there were a lot more shorter dresses for brides and a lot of ‘victory roll’ hairstyles!

Credit Lovemydress, Etsy, Cuttinge Edge Brides

While the 40s had a lot of dark times for everyone, your vintage wedding could incorporate the community feel of the time that came because of the war, and get the whole family in on hand-making things from seasonal flower wedding favours to invites based on telegrams! If you’re looking to fully immerse yourself in the atmosphere of your favourite era, we recommend you look into the Beamish Museum in the North East for your venue. Take advantage of their amazing recreations and renovated buildings from the 1900s onwards, including period costume and decor! Covid-19 may have slowed them down, but they’re getting back into the swing of things and ready to take your inquiries — check it out and see if it’s perfect for you!

Credit Pinterest

Heading further in time is the style of the swinging 60s, full of bold colours, big hair, and bright kitsch themes! Kitsch art and fashion styles came about in the 60s, and is described as showy, cheap, and sometimes excessively garish, but that’s not to say it’s not loved! A 60s style dress often has a shorter hem than earlier years, following from the great rockabilly trend of the 50s, and the men can go for a classic mod style, with suspenders, bow-ties, boutonnieres of colourful flowers and daisies. Adding a pinch of kitsch to your style can really add a bold batch of colour to your theme, as well as heighten that 60s vibe. Let’s not forget adding decor to that style — vinyl records playing The Beatles, riding on a moped for your wedding album, and adding a couple of props like old books and toys to your table layout highlight the era you’re going for! If you’re looking for authentic decorations, we recommend checking out charity shops in your area before heading off to more expensive ventures — you could even have a look in Oxfam’s wedding dress outlets to see if they have a genuine vintage dress available. Alternatively, you can always search bridal shops and dressmakers to find that perfect style that suits you best.

Whatever the era you love the most, we hope this has given you a couple more new ideas to help you along with your wedding plans! What kind of vintage wedding theme would you go for? If it’s not on this blog, let us know and we’ll look into it in the future for more blogs.

See you next week.

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