Bridesmaids in white, tiaras, tuxedos and jumpsuits are key wedding trends - report

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
May 1, 2018

With a royal wedding happening later this month, weddings are very much in focus in the UK and after analysing the purchase habits of couples when the last royal wedding happened (2011), compared to this year, John Lewis has come up with a definitive trends report.

And what has it discovered? The trend for black-tie weddings has grown rapidly in the last seven years with men’s tuxedo sales rising 68% faster than other formalwear over the period.

For brides though, there’s a mix of formal and more casual happening. For instance, the OTT full-skirted wedding dress is less popular and this year the Phase Eight ‘Hope’ dress is the topseller, retailing at £595. The slim cut dress comes in white with silver beading. And some brides are choosing jumpsuits to get married in (more of that later).

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But formality is key for headwear. John Lewis said the popular TV series The Crown seems to be driving a tiara trend and sales of this particular piece of headwear have grown almost 70% in the past six months.

Co-ordination is also key. The retailer said there's a strong trend for brides to choose white dresses not just for themselves but for their bridesmaids too, although silver, ivory and pale pink are the most popular bridesmaid shades. 

And perhaps reflecting the increasing fondness for strapless wedding dresses (which was definitely a non-starter for weddings a few decades ago), John Lewis also said that multiway strapless bras are its bestsellers for brides this summer. Sales of its Ivory Satin Band Underwired Strapless Multiway Bra are up over 100% year-on-year.

As for wedding guests, Lucy Knight, Personal Stylist at John Lewis's White City Westfield shop said: “Royal Ascot has put the seal of approval on jumpsuits as acceptable formalwear and we expect to see lots of wedding guests and even brides wearing fashionable jumpsuits this summer.”

So far this year there have been 8,715 searches on the retailer's webstore for jumpsuits and searches for white jumpsuits have quadrupled year-on-year, suggesting a definite move towards the item for brides themselves.

The UK’s fondness for fascinators continues to grow among wedding guests too. Seven years ago, for every one hat that was bought, two fascinators were purchased. This year though, fascinators outsell hats by a ratio of five to one.

John Lewis also said that brides in the UK are becoming more educated around bridal beauty and as such, are taking their wedding make-up into their own hands. In 2017, nearly 4,000 brides-to-be booked in for a Bridal Makeup Lesson at Bobbi Brown.

In recent years, they’ve been embracing the ‘less is more’ look and this season it’s evolving. The retailer is starting to see “a pretty-but-strong lip paired with a soft defined eye and fresh, clean skin.” For lipstick, there are fewer nudes and browns, with more of a rose and soft pink tone. The most popular lipstick shade for brides wearing Bobbi Brown make-up on their wedding day is Sandwash Pink.