Old Fashioned Wedding Ideas That Are Still Relevant Today
Old Fashioned Wedding Ideas That Are Still Relevant Today
Vintage wedding themes have been extremely popular for many years now. Those carry a feeling of DIY and the simplicity of the old times. But under all those beautifully styled photos the modern wedding can be really expensive even if it’s vintage inspired. There’s nothing frugal or budget in them. If we ask the people who came before us, I bet many of them would tell how their money was used to setting up home rather than paying for a big party. How did our grandmas really get married and what can we learn from them? Even if we count in the inflation, most weddings used to be simpler and much cheaper.
Plan your whole wedding outfit with this beautiful easy to use planner!
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A brief history of today’s weddings
The big wedding we know today is very much a 1960’s and -70’s love baby, as the big society weddings from before were imitated and recreated with easy to produce mass-products.
After the war years the society and advertisement was all about women getting married, living their day as a princess before moving into suburbs to be housewives and mothers. Even back then not all people had that.
The American Wedding dream that’s so well known all over the world was aimed mainly for well payed, white, upper middle class and huge amount of people weren’t in that picture perfect position.
Let’s dig to the bottom and see how our grandmothers and their mothers before them got married and what we living in 21st century can learn from their traditions and how we can adapt the vintage practices into modern time!
Average wedding cost has been steadily rising towards 30,000 dollars in the last ten years. During the year 2016 it was 35,000 dollars in USA (The Knot Wedding Survey). Big weddings are a thing but I can’t but think that maybe we could do with just a little bit less. Less doesn’t always mean that you have to give up on something but rather think about gaining control of spending and focusing on what really makes the wedding day important.
So how can you achieve the less-hustle wedding? I think our grandparents have a thing or two to tell us.
1. Focus on the ceremony
Modern way:
Small and elopement weddings are getting more and more popular. You can invite people only to the ceremony and hop on to your plane or train after that to start your wedded bliss just by two of you. There’s nothing wrong to meet with your friends and family afterwards for a dinner or other ’dates’ when you can really chat with them and share the stories of your adventure.
2.The vintage wedding was often held earlier in the day
In the 19th century weddings were held in the morning and wedding breakfast was really that, a breakfast, brunch or lunch eaten with the closest guests. Later during the 20th century weddings moved slowly from daytime and lunch affairs to evening parties we are familiar today.
Modern way:
By moving the wedding and reception to the earlier hours you can save lots of money and offer cheaper brunch buffet at the reception instead of a sit down dinner. The wedding couple in the picture is from the year 1954. (Walter)
3.Champagne weddings were a thing
It meant that after the ceremony, guests were invited for champagne and cake to a nearby hotel or the home of the bride and it was considered extremely fancy affair.
Modern way:
Your wedding could be a day time event with great cake and great drinks and the wedding couple could continue the party only with the nearest and dearest later on. Champagne weddings should really be made trendy again.
4.The wedding dress can be simple or not wedding dress at all
Well into 20th century is was typical that the wedding dress was bride’s best outfit or a new better dress. It was thought that afterwards the wedding dress could be used in any fancy party or occasion. The rough times of WWI, Depression and WWII meant that the big white dresses we seen in vintage wedding photos were used only by the luckiest. Other popular colors for wedding dresses have been black (!), pale blue and powdery pink and mauve amongst others.
Modern way:
For modern day’s simple and frugal living brides the way to learn from our elders could be that any beautiful, simple white dress can be fancy enough for a wedding. It doesn’t have be a big ball gown from a bridal shop. If you add beautiful jewels, wedding bouquet, a veil and get your hair done nicely you’ll certainly feel like a bride.
The black dress is also making a comeback! You could really splurge on accessories as you can use them again later on! Fun fact: In the picture of a wartime wedding couple the bridal bouquet is filled with self made blooms to make it appear fuller.
Plan your whole wedding outfit with this beautiful easy to use planner!
18 pages going through your whole bridal look from hair to shoes, not to forget your wedding dress.
5.Don’t overthink the cake
There’s so many wonderful cakes nowadays and the wedding cake can be an event in itself like in the Champagne weddings. Earlier times and in the country weddings the cake might have been baked at home and decorated by someone who was artistic with things like flowers, cream, sugar paste, the figurine that was used in every wedding of the family, fresh berries etc. In the countryside the vintage wedding might have been abig event but it was understood that everyone would pitch in.
Modern way:
It’s good to remember that the cake will be eaten so focus on the taste and that there’s plenty of it. The simple white vanilla flavored cake with berries and cream is always classy and good option. Did you know that for decoration real flowers are more budget friendly than those made of fondant!
6.Honeymoons were much cheaper
People traveled inside their own country for honeymoons if they had a possibility to have a honeymoon. Very few got a chance to make a trip to somewhere exotic. If the honeymoon in Maldives isn’t in your budget, you could think what kind of other places you have always wanted to visit.
Modern way:
Nice idea would be renting a cottage in somewhere idyllic. Think about Ireland or France or Italy where you could spend days in bed or outside bicycling to the nearby villages. Doesn’t sound too bad, yeah? You could even find the perfect spot somewhere within your country’s borders. Save on the trip and splurge on the place, maybe take the beach holiday at your five year anniversary for example when you don’t have a wedding to pay.
“Instead of beach holiday, you could book an idyllic cottage to spend your honeymoon in with a fraction of a cost of Maldives holiday.“
7. Use what you have for wedding flowers
Flowers have always been a big part of weddings. When fresh flowers were almost impossible to get like in cold seasons during WWII in Europe, brides crafted small sprays of flowers from paper for their wedding day. In 1920’s brides added things like feathers and love knots into their bouquets. Roses, lilies, carnations and sweet peas have been popular flowers through the ages.
Modern way:
Stick with easy to get flowers that are in season. Little posy type bouquets are classy and budget friendly. If you want something big, ask the florist to ad plenty of greenery to give the bouquet more volume with smaller cost. Read our blog post 10 Easy To Grow Vintage Wedding Flowers to get ideas!
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There you go! We hope you’ve gotten many ideas and things to think about. If you liked the blogpost, drop the like and follow us in our Instagram!
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Love,
Iida
Iida Silvennoinen
Designer, author, blogger
Iida is a bridal designer at Heili Bridal and her passion is to help brides feel special in their big day. She grew up in the middle of wedding dresses and has been dressing brides in all shapes and sizes for years. She loves gardening and relaxed evenings at home.
Iida Silvennoinen is the author of The Wedding Dress Book in which she walks the bride through the wedding dress searching and shopping.
