Everyone wants a summer wedding, right?
Well, no, not everyone!
Winter weddings can be utterly wonderful and… sunshine doesn’t make your wedding magical.
There. I said it.
What makes your wedding magical – whether a summer wedding or a winter wedding – is… you two!
It’s actually marrying the person you love, who lights up your soul. It’s declaring your love in the place that feels right, surrounded by the people that you love, in the way that makes your heart sing…
Oh, and fairy lights… lots and lots of twinkling lights… yes, they are pretty magical too!
Here are 8 reasons (plus a cheeky extra one at the end!) that might just convince you to buck the summer wedding trend and plan for a winter wedding instead.
Emma and Joe, who (literally!) tied the knot at The Plough at Leigh in a beautifully twinkly December wedding! Captured by www.lukegranger.co.uk
So here we go with reason #1!
You just don’t need to worry about the weather at a winter wedding!
It’s just not a factor!
No-one expects sunshine in the winter. Between October and March, everyone expects it to be damp and chilly here in the UK. The fact that it might be a gloriously sunny day is considered a bonus, but not one that your whole day depends on.
Whilst outdoor ceremonies are wonderful, they do need a back up plan, even in August (especially in August!).
Getting married anytime from late autumn, through winter and into early spring means that an indoor, undercover wedding is most likely going to be your Plan A, with no need for a ‘Wet Wedding Plan B’!
Wedding venues will already be decorated for their Christmas and New Year celebrations.
If you’re considering a winter wedding, there’s more than a chance that you might just also love Christmas! Many venues will already have their own Christmas decorations up by early November and so you won’t be decorating a space from scratch. They are likely to have started the process of creating a warm, welcoming atmosphere for you.
And if you and your venue are well-matched in terms of your style, it’s highly likely that you will love their Christmas decorating style too. Think Christmas trees adorned with colourful baubles and twinkly lights bedecking even more surfaces than usual! So, it could well save you a pretty penny on your venue styling to choose a date over this period.
Let them know your colour scheme and they may even tie in the baubles to match!
It could also inspire you with some added personal touches, like these baubles made by lovely Emma and her mum. They contained black and white wedding photos of their parents and grandparents on their own wedding days. Our bride and groom hung the baubles of their own parents on the Christmas tree, before inviting their parents to come up and hang the handmade baubles of their own parents on the tree. There wasn’t a dry eye in the room!
There’s more time to appreciate the twinkly lights!
Because it gets dark so much earlier in the winter months, those fairy lights will twinkle for far longer! A mid-winter wedding will see it getting dark by 4pm in the south of the UK, and even earlier if you are in the north of England or even Scotland. This means that the warm glow of the fairy lights at your wedding venue will look amazing for so much longer!
And if you want to celebrate with a sparkler tunnel instead of (or as well as!) a confetti throw, you can do it so much earlier.
There’s no need to wait as long as these two did for the dark backdrop that you need to really make the most of the sparklers! This was the middle of June at the East Quay Venue, Whitstable. A fantastic day, but even at 9pm the sky was still holding onto the light! Just the challenge that their photographer, Paul Fuller, relishes though!
A Winter Wedding is so much cosier because everyone is together!
Your guests are the ones who will create the atmosphere at your wedding: the chat, the laughter, the sharing of stories, the swopping of memories, the reconnections… the dancing! Getting that warm atmosphere, where everyone is relaxing and enjoying themselves, is so much easier when people are together.
A winter wedding does this for you (as does a rainy wedding – and that’s another story!). Firstly, make sure you’ve got a big enough indoor space for your guest list. Then, when it’s cold outside and everyone wants to stay indoors that precious atmosphere will get built and held within that gorgeous space!
Bring in the ‘hygge’!!
Embrace warming drinks, roaring fires and cosy blankets. Your day is a celebration of love – the loud, joyful, jump up and down, shout it from the rooftops type of love, but also the secure, long-lasting, comforting, cosy ‘hygge’ type of love. The sort of love that would come in, pull on some slippers, curl up on your sofa in front of the fire. The sort of love that you would give your favourite blanket to and sit drinking hot chocolate with for hours. That’s a type of love worth welcoming in too!
And a winter wedding makes it so easy to create an area for just this type of ‘hygge’. This corner of Oak Tree Barn, Tonbridge, just cried out for cosy late night chats and a hot toddy…
Winter weddings in the UK are all about feeling cosy – and having the dresses and wraps to match!
Why is it always the people wearing dresses who are shivering, whilst it’s those who are well covered and cosy in a suit that are nice and toasty?
Winter bridal dresses are now available with sleeves, and even faux fur trim, and these are super popular in the cooler months. They look so elegant and you can still choose to expose your shoulders or collarbones whilst having your arms covered with satin, lace or a voile fabric.
Or even opt for a jumper and skirt – like G did at their late autumnal wedding at Kingdom! Thanks to Wild Tide Weddings for the photo and the weather gods for smiling on us enough to allow this outdoor ceremony!
Faux fur wraps or woollen shawls are a great choice for the journey in the wedding car, and from the wedding car to the ceremony.
Make sure you have them for bridesmaids too. Child bridesmaids especially will appreciate a cosy cardigan or wrap – and it’s an extra opportunity for some sparkle!
No sweat marks or worries about sunstroke!
Every piece of advice for a summer wedding will mention dealing with the heat: how to avoid sweat marks, how to avoid your guests getting sunstroke, how to keep your guests hydrated…
At a winter wedding, you just don’t have to worry about any of that – no fans, no hats, no parasols, no extra water, no extra sunscreen!
And this is where those suits come in handy… In the summer, anyone in a beautiful tweed 3-piece suit may worry about passing out! Not so in the winter!
At a winter wedding, they really don’t need to worry about that at all! They can be thinking instead about being chivalrous with that (non-sweaty!) jacket and offering it to anyone who is gently shivering!
And, what’s more, those jackets can be merrily removed later without worrying that there will be huge sweat patches on the shirts underneath!
A winter wedding is cheaper AND your dream wedding suppliers are more likely to be free in the winter months!
Winter weekday weddings tend to be cheaper than summer weekend weddings.
As it’s traditionally ‘off-season’, many venues and other suppliers will have better availability and be able to offer discounted rates and so you could find it will be a much more budget-friendly wedding. The month of the year, as well as the day of the week can make a difference!
(Please don’t ask your celebrant for a seasonal discount though – the hours we invest in creating your ceremony will be absolutely the same no matter the season – and may even be more if you catch us in a quiet period! 😘)
Finding the wedding venue that you absolutely love, the celebrant that you really click with and the photographer of your dreams all available on the same summer date is going to be pretty unlikely unless you are booking a year (or even two!) in advance.
Between October and March, diaries for wedding suppliers tend to be quieter so you have much more chance of securing your ‘dream team’ of suppliers.
This also means that you can organise a wedding sooner if it will fall in this time. One of the main reasons it takes so long to plan a wedding is that wedding suppliers get booked up so far in advance. A winter wedding date can bypass this!
So, if you’re thinking that a winter wedding is actually sounding like a great idea, do check out my FAQs here.
Or go straight ahead and book a call to chat about creating your magical winter wonderland wedding!
Oh, and that final bonus reason…
You can still jet off on honeymoon straight afterwards!
Either warm up in some sunshine in a place like the Maldives or take a wintery trip to try and catch some proper snow and maybe even see the Northern Lights!
Have a chat with a travel agent to get both their best suggestions and their best deals!
Either way, a winter wedding means you get to miss a bit of ‘grey sky time’ here in the UK!!
Recent Comments