There are weddings and then there are royal weddings that always leave an everlasting impression on the hearts and minds of all soon-to-be-married brides! No wonder the ultimate, epic, and memorable royal weddings of Prince William and Kate Middleton, now known as the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, and Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, also known as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex led to thousands of brides to prepare a new wedding checklist with more of royal wedding themes, ideas, and inspirations. Though not all of us were invited to the ultra-exclusive royal wedding reception of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle or to Prince William and Kate Middleton, we are thankful that most of the details are (finally!) emerging from it and unquestionably those details do not disappoint! Epic toasts? You know it better. Fireworks? Naturally. In short, their royal wedding receptions sound like the world’s best wedding reception ever.
Celebrity guests and the stately venue has never made these royal weddings the talk of the town. In fact, it’s the creative touches that the lovely couple put on their own celebration made it cut above the rest. From signature cocktail inspired by their first meeting to late-night burgers (a classic nod to the bride’s- Meghan Markle American roots) and more, it was crystal clear that Harry and Meghan, like every other bride and groom, were immensely drenched in the planning and were trying their best to add a personal touch to their wedding reception. So, what if you don’t get Elton John on stage or George Clooney to RSVP, you can always withdraw inspiration from these unforgettable and classic weddings to make your wedding celebration a memorable event and obviously the talk of the town.
The royal wedding inspiration is ageless and elegant in every way. All the soon-to-be-married brides who are looking for classy and royal wedding ideas can never get enough of these royal weddings. No doubt, royal weddings are a huge trendsetter in every decade. There is nothing that can go off-beat if you are planning a royal-themed wedding for your big day. Apart from extravagant wedding dresses, scale and formality are the other factors that set royal weddings apart from other weddings. But if in case you are not planning to invite 600+ wedding guests (obviously everyone has to follow COVID-19 guidelines to get married) to your royal wedding, you can always pick the best and most beautiful aspects of royal wedding inspired by Prince William and Kate Middleton’s and Prince Harry and Megan Markle’s wedding to use in your own wedding and make your wedding guests fall head over heels in love with your celebration. In the end, what all matters is that your wedding day is all about how you flaunt and showcase your eternal love, relationships, and your future life together, whether you are a royal or not!
Now that these two royal weddings have been engraved in history, it’s time for you to add a little majesty to your own wedding day. To help make sure your wedding is fit for a king and queen, we have rounded up several elegant royal wedding trends that you can opt and impress all your wedding guests in a royal manner! So, welcome to our guide to royal-themed weddings!
A royal wedding means no amount of expense is going to be spared. The gorgeous and ultra-long bridal trains with the length of an entire cathedral come to mind. Apart from the lovely bridal dress the copious amount of extravagant floral arrangements and pomp and ceremony are the other things that touch our soul. The lavish, classic, yet elegant decor is the hallmark of a royal wedding (no doubt to that!). The theme of any royal wedding is best represented by rich gold accents, intricate and delicate scrollwork, and dashes of rich shades like gleaming royal blue or amethyst. All these colors surely enhance the beauty of your wedding portfolio.
Classic dripping arrangements of pure white and blush flowers are best off-set by the powerful gold accents. It is an easy breeze to dip into cliche while planning the decor as there are endless options to choose from. Starting from rhinestones to glitter, to eye-catching accents, nothing can beat the elegance and charm of a royal blue theme adorned with all the glitter. There is no doubt that the royal blue theme is understated but it is always classic, beautiful, and never out of fashion! So, choose an appropriate venue and use the setting to your advantage to make your wedding day an unforgettable celebration. A pro tip is here. Make sure your wedding venue has a grand staircase so that all your wedding photos turn out stunning and glamorous.
Royal Wedding Bride & Groom Attire
• Bride
Many brides dream about walking down the aisle in a princess-like gown (I guess almost all the brides)! And there is no place more appropriate than a royal-theme wedding. You can always look at Kate Middleton or Meghan Markle wedding photos when you go shopping for your beautiful bridal dress. As there is no doubt when we say that Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle have inspired thousands of brides to choose gowns featuring various styles and statements. While Kate inspired brides to go for elegant lace sleeves for their big day, on the other hand, Meghan Markle inspired all the brides to choose minimalist styled gowns for their grand vow exchange moment.
So all the brides especially modern who are looking for a truly elegant and royal look on their wedding day, we advise that skip the strapless ball gowns and go in search of a sleek wedding gown with beautiful lacy or non-lacy sleeves (your decision). You can even go for an elegant bolero to pair with your lovely wedding dress.
To get a complete princess look at your wedding day you can also experiment with full-length skirt wedding dresses featuring a dramatic train. While this type of wedding dress may be a bit much perfect for other simpler weddings, a royal-theme wedding is usually made for bigger and better. We are pretty sure that as a bride you always had a vision of moving down the aisle while all the eyes were stuck upon you, and later on wheeling around the dance floor with the love of your life in a cloud of tulle. This moment gives a plethora of beautiful frames to your professional wedding photographers to capture magical wedding photos.
• Royal Bridal Accessories
The true essence of a royal bride gets reflected with the choice of her tiara she decided to wear to compliment her wedding dress. And brides of royalty always don a diamond-encrusted tiara on loan from the crown jewel vault, and other accessories with a dramatic cathedral length veil to complete her fabulous royal bridal look!
However, when it comes to us desiring to get the same exact look, we always advise you to go for the tiaras that will lay closer to your head and offer a beautiful yet delicate touch of (Swarovski) crystals. Make sure you are choosing a tiara that is classy, not trashy, or completely screaming that you are a pageant queen! Keeping your look subtle is the ultimate aim of you resonating with your royal wedding theme.
Coming down to the veil, a dramatic long bridal veil always plays a big role in royal weddings and in wedding photography sessions! Do you remember Princess Diana’s veil or Priyanka Chopra Jonas’s veil? Those extremely long trains sweeping the floor always make a remarkable style statement in every era. Though it is a lot of tulles, this is what makes every royal bride standout and inspiration for soon-to-be brides. You can also achieve a similar dramatic look for your wedding day and wedding photography, all you need to do is choose a chapel or cathedral length veil for yourself! And there you are, rocking that royal bride looks in perfect excellence.
• Groom
To get the look of a royal groom, grooms don’t have much to do. As the royal dress codes for men, there is a note on the wedding invite making it specific what the groom and his squad have to wear to excel their looks! “Uniform, Morning Coat, or Lounge Suit.” In short, this means if you have an appropriate uniform, wear it. Otherwise, the groom and groomsmen should be dressed in full Morning Dress Code, which in North American terms means as formally as possible, in black tuxes with a contrasting waistcoat if possible.
• Bridesmaids/ Maid of Honor/ Groomsmen
Talking about the maid of honor dress, then Pippa Middleton (sister of Kate Middleton) has inspired hundreds of maids of honor to go for a similarly figure-hugging dress (sheath-style) with a cowl neckline. Your maid of honor can always go for this look and expect to look stunning in every wedding photograph.
About bridesmaids’ dresses, there should be a match of color between the bridesmaids and groomsmen dresses. Long formal gowns never go out of fashion. Your bridesmaids’ wedding attire should also match in a complementary color. If you prefer a deep contrast, make sure all your bridesmaids are dressed in amethyst tones or deep royal blue. If you prefer a paler, classy look, consider shades of gray, rose, or blush.
Royal wedding Stationery Inspiration
Tasteful and elegant wedding stationery is significant to carry your royal-themed wedding from the beginning of the day to the end (till the moment you make your floral exit)! Keeping in mind that you are planning a royal-themed wedding, so don’t let your inner child wander and get tempted to include all sorts of fancy embellishments, ribbons, rhinestones, and extras on your royal-themed wedding invites. You can always Google up the wedding invitations of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle (and of course, those of Prince William and Kate Middleton). Both the royal wedding invitations were tasteful, heavily adorned with white linen, that used embossing printing technique with a tasteful crest and simple black typeface.
As there goes a saying that royalty is about classiness after all! So, an elegant and chic understated wedding invitation will serve well, embellished with gold detailing and spearing font. Your wedding stationery should follow the same vein as wedding invitations to keep the theme cohesive. If you’ve chosen gold accents, cream linen paper, and black script, then make sure that programs, place cards, table cards, and menu cards also follow suit!
Floral Inspiration for Royal Wedding
If you flip the pages of any bridal magazines and look at the past royal wedding bouquet trends throughout Europe, you will find that all the royal brides majorly followed the same pattern of holding white bouquet during their aisle walking moment. Though the Princess Sofia of Sweden carried a lovely and beautiful bouquet of coral and cream garden roses, which inspired thousands of brides to experiment with their bridal bouquet and add a tint of various colors in their bouquets! If you want to have something that makes you resonate with royal brides, you have the options to choose from Austin roses, calla lilies, white primroses, white orchids, freesia, ivy, springs of myrtle, and others. Ask your florists about the other variety of flowers that you can think of adding to your bridal bouquet as we are sure that there will be other aromatic and beautiful flowers waiting for you to get picked up and make your wedding day an extraordinary celebration.
Now the next floral decor comes for the centerpieces for your guest tables. Don’t go too small for the centerpiece, choose as much height as possible in each centerpiece. Towering glass vases capped with round arrangements and large sprays will give your guests the feel of elegance and grandeur that a royal wedding requires.
Always make sure that all the floral arrangements, accents, and bouquets are not deconstructed and are whimsically put together in one place. Instead, ask your florist to make sure florals appear tightly assembled and shapely for the most elegant look possible, as it will also elevate the beauty of decoration in the wedding photographs.
Royal Tablescape Inspiration
The one thing that you have to make sure of when you are planning a royal-themed wedding is that your vendors and wedding coordinators set each place setting in the most formal style. As keeping everything subtle and simple is the prime aspect of a royal wedding. By that, we mean that the salad fork, dinner fork, soup spoon, and all the other cutlery options are placed to make Ms. Manners proud.
In all the wedding receptions the head of the table is the focal point that you should absolutely emphasize. Whether you have planned to be seated with the love of your life on a sweetheart table or want your bridal party to be seated along with you both, whatever you have decided, your table should be emphasized with a fair amount of drama and classiness!
Royal Wedding Cake Inspiration
We all know the importance of a wedding cake. A wedding cake is one of the main centerpieces of any wedding reception and a fabulous way to convey a royal wedding theme and style. Bakeries all across the world have especially designed dramatic towers of cake rounds and piping details of the royal families’ various wedding cakes. If you want to stay on your budget and don’t wanna go over the board, mentioned below are some amazing tips recommended by us which you can think of incorporating while you are planning for your royal wedding cake design-
• Plan your royal wedding cake cased in fondant. Fondant will create a smooth, elegant surface that is much better to showcase scrollwork, painting, glitter, or pearls.
• Ask your baker to add some pearl luster to fondant to give the cake a smooth and elegant sheen.
• Scrollwork, marbling, and sugar flower accents are wonderful additions to a wedding cake to give it a majestic feel and flavor.
• If you want a grand cake but don’t have the budget for it, look at purchasing a faux wedding cake for the illusion of grandeur.
Royal Wedding Venue Ideas
To host a fantastic and incredible royal-themed wedding there are several possible venues for you to choose from, and trust us they will get easy on your pockets too. While we would not suggest you try to stage a royal-themed wedding in a barn, there are a plethora of luxurious hotels and event center ballrooms that will do that trick without breaking the bank! All you have to do is just to make sure that the space that you have selected for your royal wedding reception has fairly subtle wallpapers and carpeting so as to not clash with your design and decor!
The best location for your wedding ceremony and reception will be mostly blank or tastefully furnished with dark wood or gold accents that can easily be included into your palette. High-vaulted ceilings and chandeliers will showcase your royal decor beautifully and will leave all your wedding guests mesmerized! Romantic, dim lighting as an option is something you should ask about as well, as it will light up the mood of the setting making it more inviting and romantic!
If you really want to wow all your wedding guests, look into the manor, mansion, or castle rentals for your wedding day. This is a growing trend all over the world, and will really deliver the theme you’ve chosen with a fun and immersive experience for your guests! Turns out that you don’t have to travel all the way to Europe to find a castle, as you will surely find endless in America!
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