Planning the Perfect Halloween Wedding

Halloween Wedding

Planning the perfect Halloween wedding can be a marriage of elegance and autumnal charm or an over-the-top ghoulish occasion. Here we have some ideas to help you make your All Hallow's Eve wedding an event to remember.

The Perfect Halloween Wedding

Before you start booking agents or buying décor, you will need to decide together how Halloween will be incorporated into your wedding, whether casual and fun where everything from the wedding dress, menu and reception venue relates to Halloween or a more traditional or formal Halloween wedding where you can incorporate smaller centre-pieces and more subtle touches.

Once your theme is decided, incorporate it in everything so your guests know what to expect. There are many Halloween themed invitation ideas including those written in script on antique paper and tied to skeleton keys, or printed on black card with spider webs woven across them.

Halloween Decorations

Halloween wedding ideas

You can make Halloween the focal point for each element in your wedding planning or bring out the best of the holiday without making it the main focus. Your venue will set the theme so search for Gothic buildings or churches, or perhaps a hotel with an amazing ghost story.

With its haunting reputation Halloween weddings are best lit with lots of candles. At the witching hour, planning an event for the stroke of midnight can be fun. Perhaps order a secret flash mob to come in and perform to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” or go on a ghost hunt if you venue is recognised as a haunted house.

Wedding Attire

Some couples will be planning for just the bride and groom who will dress to a Halloween theme while others may want a full-costumed event. Some famous Halloween couples include Frankenstein and his Bride and Dracula and his Bride. You could also dress up as a famous couple from history, literature or film, with your bridal party dressed to support that theme.

If you are hosting a costumed wedding, include wording on your invitations indicating that guests can dress up to fit your theme. Make costumes optional since it’s likely not all of your guests will share your love of Halloween. When planning, do not forget to offer masks as even the most shy will put on a simple half-mask, masquerade style, even if they don’t want to wear a costume.

As your officiant if they would be willing to wear a costume that fits your theme.

For a more subtle look, the bride can choose to wear a more formal, traditional dress that is white/cream with black or red detailing, or buy a dress and add an orange sash. The groom can wear traditional tails with a top hat.

Dress the bridal party according to your colors and the depth of your theme. Bridesmaids dresses in burnt orange and black accentuate the holiday without going overboard. Groomsmen with matching cummerbunds work well with the more traditional attire.

halloween food

Food

For a smaller, casual wedding, you could serve spaghetti and "eyeballs" accompanied by blood-red punch. Larger weddings may want to serve a main dish that includes pumpkin, or include it as part of a dessert bar. For those who don’t want to offer appetite-killing names like “Smashed Brains Pate”, have the bartender create a signature drink with dry ice so it smokes like a witch’s cauldron. When planning your catering, involve your caterer for most ideas such as serving a salad with a blood orange vinaigrette or a mummy-wrapped Beef Wellington for an entree.

Serve a red velvet or pumpkin spice wedding cake along with the more traditional vanilla and chocolate flavors. Use a wedding cake topper that features a bride and groom, fall leaves, or miniature pumpkins.

Decorations

If you are planning to marry in a church or other religious building, there may be stipulations for decorations for Halloween weddings. Candles are an excellent way to make a statement at both the ceremony site and reception venue. You can have black, orange, red, brown, and purple tapered candles in ceremony windows or as part of pew decorations. Tabletop candelabras surrounded by leaves and gourds are excellent wedding reception centerpieces.

Include colored tulle as part of your altar decorations and along the head table. Floral arrangements can include dried leaves and flowers can be dyed to match your color scheme. Black or burgundy roses or orange daffodils accent a Halloween wedding perfectly.

Wedding Favors

Your Halloween wedding favors can be just about anything you wish. Even if it does not fit into your theme, you can add orange, black, or red tags and ribbons to accent the favor. Ideas include individually wrapped biscuits in the shape of pumpkins, leaves, ghosts, or gravestones; a packet of pumpkin seeds for planting in the spring or potion bottles of essential oils.