Wedding trends for 2023 from the perspective of local venues
Wedding trends come and go, but what do the owners and managers of wedding venues predict to see during 2023?
Madison Roxbury, wedding and event manager at Weddings at Eisler Farms, said “a lot of wedding trends end up being pretty similar. Barns are obviously huge; they have been for a few years.”
Weddings at Eisler Farms owns three wedding venues near Prospect, The Atrium, Pinehall and The Woods. The Atrium has held weddings for the past 20 years, while Pinehall and The Woods have hosted weddings for the past six years and two years, respectively.
“All of our venue spaces are really garden-related, so we’ve got a lot of landscaping, lots of plants, and that’s kind of been our focus,” Sherry Lynn, owner of Eisler Farms, said. “We’ve been doing the florals for our weddings, and I think that that’s been really popular, fresh florals and simple natural bouquets.”
Lynn and Roxbury find that couples are interested in outdoor wedding venues, timeless decorations, lots of greenery and plants, and opportunities to create beautiful photos.
“Everybody is into a lot of freshness and greenery, and I think there is a focus on keeping a wedding timeless now compared to before, where a lot of colors were happening and people are really focusing on that timelessness element,” Roxbury said. “I think that (couples) are looking for unique spaces compared to halls and banquet rooms and things like that.”
With more couples designing timeless weddings, Roxbury and Lynn find that neutral color pallets have become very popular, but they both hope to see more colors in 2023.
“The colors have been very neutral lately, and we’d love to see more color,” Lynn said. “There’s been a lot of sages and creams and dark greens, very neutral. We are looking for some fun colors back in the mix.”
In addition to the look of the wedding, many couples are putting thought into planning the guests’ experiences during the ceremony and reception.
“People have been putting way more toward experience-based weddings than worrying about decorations,” Roxbury said.
Wedding experiences at the Eisler Farms’ venues include fireworks, sparkler send-offs, champagne walls, and a neon sign backdrop that lights the bride and bridegroom.
Both Lynn and Roxbury pay attention to wedding trends and adapt their business accordingly. They use a combination of the internet, namely Pinterest, and trips to the Wedding MBA (Merchants Business Academy) Convention in Las Vegas.
“We go almost every November, and it is three days of seminars, and they go over what all of the top trends are and what they feel are the coming trends,” Lynn said. “One of the things they were talking about (is) what’s out (of style). We used to use, especially at the barn (at Pinehall), a lot of burlap runners and they say that that’s out.”
As couples plan to spend less money, the size of wedding guest lists has been trending down in recent years, averaging 150, according to Lynn as well as Donna Mullan, the manager of The Mansion in Penn Township.
“(Weddings) are typically smaller, and everybody is on a budget, so everybody tries to do as much on their own as they can,” Mullan said.
According to Mullan, The Mansion has hosted weddings since 1989, when the 105-acre property was purchased by Ray Lassinger of Associated Ceramics. The property has since been purchased by Concordia Lutheran Ministries in 2017.
Mullan started working at The Mansion in 2002 when she managed 25 weddings a year. She attributes the dwindling amount of weddings at the traditional, elegant venue to the rise in popularity of rustic barn weddings.
“After the barns opened up, everybody wanted a barn wedding, and so the elegant wedding was put on hold,” Mullan said. “We would like to book more (in 2023 while) we try to update (the venue) as much as we can to accommodate people.”
In addition, The Mansion had put a temporary hold on booking weddings at the beginning of 2020 while the owners tried to decide what to do with the extra acreage on the property. In 2022, there was a single wedding held during the summer.
While planning other couples' weddings and using her knowledge to her advantage, Roxbury also is planning her own wedding, set to take place at The Atrium at the end of 2023.
“I obviously have an upper hand; even when we were at the conference at Wedding MBA, I was taking mental notes,” Roxbury said. “I personally want my wedding to be experience-based, I know that we want to go heavy on the food, have a photo booth, make sure the DJ is good, that kind of stuff.”
Roxbury plans to include fireworks and a sparkler send-off to end her New Year’s Eve wedding.
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