Few people know celebrations better than Darcy Miller. The illustrator, bestselling author, and founding editor of Martha Stewart Weddings has spent decades helping people mark life’s most meaningful moments with creativity, intention, and a great deal of joy. Through her consultancy, Celebration Expert, she brings that same magic to weddings, corporate events, and brand partnerships around the world. Here, she breaks down the six wedding trends she’s seeing everywhere right now.
1. The Day-Of Content Creator
I’m seeing a whole new category of vendor: the wedding day content creator. While some couples like to keep everything private, others are thinking about how they’re going to tell their story on social media. Many of those couples are hiring content creators to take photos and videos and edit them into reels, stories, and other social media content, so they can relive the highlight moments again and again. The couple and their friends may be posting other things after the fact, but this is a polished way to share footage of the day quickly and beautifully. Sometimes the same reel is posted by the newlyweds, the planner, event designer, and other vendors. The way we document weddings has changed; it’s no longer just the album, photos, and video; social media plays a big part, now, too.
2. Engagements Turning Into Instant Parties
What was once a private moment is increasingly turning into an immediate celebration. After a proposal, couples are often surprised by friends and family waiting nearby, whether hidden in the next room, behind beach dunes, or at a nearby venue. The moment the ring is on the finger, the proposal seamlessly transitions into an engagement party complete with personalized details such as custom merchandise, photo displays, flowers, signature cocktails, and branded matches. What used to be two separate events now unfolds as one carefully orchestrated experience.
3. Beyond Photo “Booths”
Couples are really elevating the “photo booth” concept in a variety of ways. Sometimes they hire a top photographer who is set up at a station to shoot special portraits of guests, which are then printed for them to bring home as favors. Other times, they’ll create a custom environment instead of a photo booth—think a whole garden scene that looks like a Fragonard painting where guests sit on a swing to have their picture taken. Even if it’s a traditional photo-strip photo booth, you can add special touches to that. For Celebration Expert clients, we’ve created bespoke keepsake photo booth props customized to the couple. For Tiler Peck and Roman Mejia, who are principals in the New York City Ballet, we created an oversized “newspaper” covered in headlines announcing their wedding. For another party, we made life-sized portraits of the couple’s dogs, so their pets could be part of the day. And after the events, the couples keep the props to use as decor.
4. Live Artists Commemorating the Day
In the same vein as the elevated photo “booths”, couples are hiring artists to paint their wedding as it happens or having illustrators come and draw portraits of guests as favors. When Celebration Expert clients request Live Drawing for showers or engagement parties, one of the things I love is that guests get really excited to watch themselves being drawn. For me, it’s fun to draw them in what they’re wearing, because it’s a different way of documenting that night. It’s an activity and a favor in one, and we also snap a photo of each drawing so the couple has a copy.
Darcy Miller
5. Food as Decor
Designers have been creating tablescapes out of food and incorporating flowers minimally, or not at all. Sometimes the food can be eaten, like a grazing board; other times it’s purely a display—a feast for the eyes. It’s another way to play up the seasonal elements of a wedding and add unexpected decor. One of my favorite examples of this was when David Stark recently did a beautiful wedding at Lincoln Center, where custom breads lined the table—some on pedestals like sculptures alongside pyramids of butter and vessels with breadsticks, cheese, and fruit. At another event, he created a Tuscan feel with baskets full of tomatoes, greens, and colorful vegetables.
6. Vibe Shifts
It used to be that afterparties were just an extension of the party, where fun food was passed, and dance music played. Now, an afterparty is planned almost as its own event, with each segment of the night becoming a whole different mood with its own decor, music, and ambiance. The afterparty is fun and different from the fabulous wedding, and can move into another, smaller space because many of the older guests have gone home. Maybe your elegant reception in a tent is followed by a dance party in a lounge with disco balls, or you create your own nightclub complete with a neon sign flashing its name. Some people bring in special entertainment, whether it’s a DJ spinning records or drag queens performing. It’s a moment to make other statements—not just some shots and mini-bagels being served late-night, but a whole new party.
