How to Create the Perfect Halloween Themed Wedding

Are you and your partner huge fans of the spookiest night of the year and considering hosting your big day on October the 31st? Could be great fun, but you might also be a little anxious that the whole thing could look a little, well... tacky, with a Halloween theme?

If so, here’s how to create the perfect Halloween themed wedding, featuring more pumpkins and black than you can shake a lolly stick at, but looking amazing at the same time and incorporating everything you love.

Start with your venue
If you really want to nail the theme you need a venue that complements it. A creepy stately home (featuring plenty of those oil paintings with eyes that follow you) or even a historic castle should do the job. Alternatively, a marquee outside with plenty of Jack-o-lanterns and fire pits to light the way could create a spooky setting.

Is it a costume party?
Halloween is all about creating the perfect costume to wow your friends with, isn’t it? So decide early whether you want your guests to turn up in their best fancy dress before you create the invites. People will want plenty of time to plan what they’re going to be and get the different elements together.

Think carefully about your décor
Traditionally, when it comes to Halloween colours, orange and black are combined to create the theme but in a wedding setting this can feel a little overpowering. Keep things monochrome with perhaps some real pumpkins dotted around the room, instead of going wild with orange and black striped décor.

Flickering candles, small bats and spiders in unexpected places (such as in floral arrangements or on napkin holders) and perhaps the odd skull or two, works perfectly.

Food is important
We all like to indulge our sweet tooth at Halloween and when it comes to food there are endless options. You don’t have to make hotdogs that look like fingers or have a wedding cake covered in fake blood splatters, there are plenty of ways of incorporating your Halloween theme into the food.

Perhaps set up a ‘Trick or Treat’ station featuring all your favourite sweets from your childhood for people to bag up or put together a menu changing all the names to something spooky.

Make the cake your main feature
While you might not want a gruesome looking cake (or hey, maybe you do, your wedding day is your chance to feature your personality), it’s the perfect opportunity to play with your theme. A cake in the shape of stacked pumpkins or something like these amazing designs should do the trick. Alternatively, you could have a traditional looking cake and dress things up simply with some spooky toppers.

Go all out with the wedding party outfits
The wedding dress and wedding party clothing is important when creating the perfect Halloween themed day, from the stone in the Eternity Ring to the colour of the shoes everyone wears. A wedding dress can be enhanced with black pearl or lace details and a birdcage veil, while the groom can incorporate some spooky items in his boutonniere.

Bridesmaids in black dresses look amazing and instead of traditional flowers why not use some small broomsticks, dressed up with pretty corsages in the twigs, to walk down the aisle with – you can then conduct a traditional broom jumping ceremony, an act that ‘symbolises a new beginning and a sweeping away of the past’. It ties in wonderfully with both a Halloween theme and a wedding ceremony. 

Halloween is the perfect opportunity to let your hair down, incorporate your theme, have fun with it and if things start to look like that cheesy Halloween party you had in your first flat as a couple embrace it – it’s your favourite holiday for a reason!