There comes a time in every girl’s life when all her paid time off — and a good chunk of disposable income — is allocated to weddings. A bachelorette weekend in Miami, a civil ceremony in London, a three-day destination wedding in Italy. Each event comes with its own dress code, color palette, and multiple outfit changes.
Several cultures outside the West (including India, Pakistan, China, and Nigeria) are known for multi-day high-guest-count weddings that feature multiple outfit changes for guests. What’s newer is the way Western wedding culture is catching up, fueled by destination travel, social media, and the rise of weddings as events with a highly curated aesthetic. While the wedding guest consumer might be exhausted — financially, logistically, and sartorially — brands are tapping into demand.
“Multi-day weddings, either at home or abroad, have become a mainstay on the wedding scene,” says wedding planner Matthew Shaw and founder of luxury events studio Saveur. “Couples are becoming more creative with their program and how they host their nuptials — we’re not just talking about one wedding party with a goodbye brunch anymore. With multiple events making up a wedding that usually means multiple outfits.” Shaw says dress codes are becoming more specific and elevated, with couples often sending multi-day lookbooks or visual mood boards.
“Even if someone does not post regularly on social media, they will almost always post when attending a wedding, so there is pressure to look especially good,” says influencer Greta Louise Tomé, who regularly attends weddings herself and sources wedding guest looks for followers based on specific briefs, from destination and dress code to budget. This also means pressure to avoid outfit-repeating — or worse, to show up in the same dress as someone else, especially if everyone’s shopping from the same brands and same wedding guest edits.
Tomé says most of her followers shop in the $300 to $500 price range and want something unique. She typically narrows her search by budget, and starts on platforms including Forward, Revolve, Net-a-Porter, and Mytheresa, or looking to more niche designers if someone has a larger budget. “When it comes to wedding guest dressing, color, and texture are usually the first things that catch my eye. The market is very oversaturated right now, and many dresses start to look the same,” she says. Tomé sees strong demand for bright colors for destination weddings, in particular. “I am always searching for pieces that feel distinctive. That could be a unique color, an interesting texture, or even a unique neckline. I want something special yet wearable. If it blends in with everything else, it does not make the cut.”
Brands and retailers are seeing the impact of this growing demand for the wedding guest category. At Revolve, year-on-year growth in this category has outpaced the growth of the total business. “The wedding guest category is in an acceleration phase, and I don’t see a plateau anytime soon,” says chief merchandising officer and fashion director Divya Mathur. “The scope of weddings has changed dramatically. As a result, the range of what guests shop for has dramatically expanded, and that shift impacts both how we curate our buy for this category, as well as how we merchandise it across our channels.”
