To be Christmassy or not to be Christmassy – that is the question that lots of brides planning December weddings face. It is totally a matter of personal opinion and style. So I’m going to share some cute detail and design ideas from December weddings I’ve photographed, both Christmassy and not Christmassy!

I’m going to be diving into the past two December weddings I’ve photographed. One of them leaned into Christmas and the other one stayed strictly “wintry”. And they both did those respective themes very, very well!! And I’ll link both of those weddings in the blog post as well so you can take a peek if you wanna put more visuals to this text description.

December Wedding with a Christmas Flare

Let’s start with the Christmassy wedding. It took place the first weekend of December at Mendenhall Inn in Chadds Ford, PA. Mendenhall Inn is a great winter venue because the grand ballroom has a massive, beautiful Christmas tree that a grand staircase wraps around! So right off the bat, the venue itself was giving Christmas.

But the colors of the day were honestly perfect for the vibes: white, gold and emerald green. The bridesmaids wore velvet emerald green dresses. The invitations were white with green words and had gold accents throughout, and the florals were white and green. So no red in the color scheme. BUT! Any sort of red accent throughout the day – be in the red flowers at the Catholic church where they got married, some fake red berries I brought as props for the detail flat lay or the red decorations on the Christmas tree in the hotel lobby where we did the first look with dad – the red looked VERY good with that color scheme. And it was those accents of their surroundings that added to the Christmassy feel of the day.

I think it was genius to not include red in the official colors of the wedding, but to instead embrace the red of the Christmas decorations in their surroundings. It made for a Christmassy wedding that was not over the top Christmas!! Which meant the photos were timeless, which is always a good thing. Big fan of this wedding – shoutout Jenny and Ryan for putting together such an incredible day.

Winter Wedding with Evergreen Charm

Moving onto a not-so-Christmassy December wedding! We’ll use the term “wintry”, because this wedding definitely embraced winter vibes while remaining modern & classy. While the Christmassy wedding included emerald green in the color theme, this wedding was strictly black, white and gold. The bridesmaids wore black velvet dresses. The invitation suite was black white and gold. The reception details like the seating chart was all black white and gold, and even the photos on display for the “generations of love” table and the guest book were all black and white photos with gold frames! It was a very seamless and elegant look.

The pops of color, which was only green – no red – came almost entirely from the florals! The bride’s bouquet included various white flowers surrounded by pine tree greenery. That pine greenery was a mainstay for all the floral decoration. The boutonnieres had pine in them and the sweetheart table had pine greenery with little twinkle lights mixed into them. It was really pretty!!

The reception table centerpieces did not have pine, however. I think was a great decision so as not to overdo one specific ingredient to the floral design. The centerpieces instead had little bud vases of various white flowers that were in the bouquet. There were also clear table number signs with black writing, and the cake was just white icing with a black topper and a little bit of baby’s breath for decor.

The cool thing about having green as an accent color is that even the stems for the flowers felt like they belonged in the design of everything!! Major shoutout to Jacky and Austin for designing such a gorgeous wedding day.

Color Theme is Vital

I think to sum it all up, the Christmassy December wedding felt Christmassy without overdoing it because it welcomed the Christmas reds and colors from the surroundings and the color scheme allowed for that blending to work really well. Because in December, there are going to be Christmassy things around. The wintry wedding achieved that look by sticking to the simple yet classy color scheme down to the smallest detail.

A Note on Velvet

I want to make one last note about velvet dresses! They are a common choice for winter weddings, as they are one of the warmest fabrics you can choose. Velvet dresses tend to lean on the dark side unless there is direct light shining on them to bring out the true color.

Cameras capture light differently than the human eye (which is a whole entire topic that I’m not gonna dive into right now) but the color of velvet dresses will mostly be seen with direct light. So for the Christmassy wedding, using flash at the reception, the dresses very much looked velvet green. But when we did portraits outside, the entire dress didn’t look the same shade of emerald green. The parts that were more exposed to the light did, and the rest had a really dark look to them.

I personally don’t mind the look of this. I actually think it looks quite cool with the way it reflects light. But if you are really particular about the exact color you want your bridesmaids dresses to look in every single picture, then velvet should not be the fabric of choice.

Alright!! I hope you enjoyed this blog about winter wedding design. Even if you’re not planning a winter wedding, I hope you learned how a strict color scheme or a more open color scheme can impact the vibes of the day and therefore your photos. But all this stuff – the design, the color scheme – all of that is just icing on the cake. And the cake is you getting married to the love of your life 🙂

For more wedding planning tips, check out How To Choose the Perfect Veil for Stunning Wedding Photos or Unique Ways to Involve Guests on Your Wedding Day.