In a TikTok world, many wedding traditions don't stand a chance

Gen Z's TikTok weddings show how younger couples are ditching overly romanticized, traditional, and costly expectations about the perfect wedding.

• Some young couples are now using TikTok to help plan their weddings and find original ideas.
• Traditions like the bouquet toss, favors, and matching bridesmaid dresses are out. 
• The wedding industry is beginning to see the fallout of this shift away from tradition. 

Ashley Klimper has been spending a couple hours a week on TikTok to help plan her wedding. 

She wanted to keep her costs under $10,000, so an event planner wasn't in her budget. That meant "wedding TikTok" — with its dancing groomsmen and videographers turned influencers — was the next best thing. 

"We can't afford all those special vendors but since they're giving away their secrets, I write them down," said the 25-year-old, who's getting married in June. "Really, everything's on TikTok."

In this tears-of-joy-drenched corner of the internet, business owners, planners, and fellow brides share their tips. Klimper found ideas for meticulous day-of schedules, entrance and recessional songs, signs she could design on Canva, and Jimmy Choo-inspired, DIY pearl-encrusted platform heels. What more could she need?

Not much, it seems. Though Klimper is getting married on rolling farmland, you won't find any burlap decor or Mason jars. "That's a big no-no," she said. "I hate rustic weddings."

Instead, she's aiming for an "elegant secret garden" vibe, she said. There are peonies and rosebushes on the property and she'll place vintage, floral-embroidered handkerchiefs on each seat for the ceremony.

Klimper hopes to make her wedding unique, with touches that bring her and her fiancé's personalities to life. "We're very fun and a little quirky," she said. 

Brides and grooms have always wanted to personalize their weddings, but now they're getting their inspiration from TikTok. To make their nuptials memorable, couples are going after viral — and sometimes cringey — moments like couples dapping at the altar or turning their first kiss into a skit, this generation's version of flash-mob dances down the aisle. 

That quest for originality is proving difficult for the old guards of establishment weddings: The companies that sell pulled-from-a-catalog formalwear and traditional jewelry are falling behind in a TikTok world. David's Bridal — once the go-to for affordable bridal and bridesmaid dresses — filed for bankruptcy in April after struggling to appeal to modern brides. And Signet Jewelers, the country's largest jeweler, has seen ring sales slump alongside a drop in engagements. 

Businesses that want to survive the social reboot of weddings will have to adapt or risk becoming — like leg-of-mutton sleeves — a faded nuptial fad.

Redefining the 'perfect day'

Weddings also look different for what they're omitting. For example: The bouquet toss is dead. 

"I think it's really mean to put all women in a room and fight for who's gonna get married next," one creator said in a TikTok. 

In its place, couples are throwing T-shirts to their guests or gifting the bouquet to the couple who's been married longest. All this change comes as the definition of a wedding — and who gets to have one — has evolved in just the past decade. Ceremonies are changing, too, as religious practices become less common. Couples are asking friends to officiate, using gender-neutral scripts, having a flower man instead of a flower girl, and doing group vows. Even the towering, tiered cakes are being replaced with dessert boards or ice cream. 

"Couples are now seeking the freedom to celebrate their weddings the way that feels most authentic to them," said Vishal Joshi, the cofounder and CEO of the wedding-planning platform Joy.

"Many don't want to be defined by the overly romanticized, traditional, and costly expectations of their wedding," he continued. "So it is time for us in the wedding industry to expand the definition of what a perfect day means."

While planning her May wedding, Melanie Breault, 34, found herself trying to pull off a delicate balance between her family's expectations and the creativity she desired. "There was no way that my family was going to be OK with us not doing printed invitations," she said. 

But she was able to subvert tradition in other ways. Instead of a veil, she wore a cape. For favors, the couple gave their guests scratch-off tickets. 

Klimper plans to do favors her own way, too. She's asked an artist friend to paint watercolor portraits of guests during cocktail hour. 

"They'll have this little cute picture of what they're wearing for the day and they'll have it forever," she said. "Favors are kind of going out of style. They're just not needed."

Many couples have eliminated favors altogether because they don't feel obligated to fork over even more money. 

"We're just calling the alcohol that we're giving everybody our favor," said Stephanie Kirk, 30, who is getting married in July. "We're giving guests something that they're actually wanting, which is probably a free glass of wine."

Some couples have decided to forgo a formal wedding party as well. Klimper designated her "bridal besties" and her fiancé has a "groom's crew," but they won't stand with the couple during the ceremony or wear matching outfits. Instead, they've asked all 40 of their guests to wear shades of blue, which is the couple's wedding color palette.

Grace Lee, the founder and CEO of the bridal brand Birdy Grey, is seeing a shift toward unconventional wedding-party looks. Instead of matching pastel chiffon dresses, more brides are going maximalist and mixing fabrics, styles, colors, and patterns. That's why Birdy Grey is introducing a collection of prints next year.

"Gone are the days of the same bridesmaid dress in the same color, in the same silhouette, having six women wear the same thing," Lee said. "People are just getting a little more creative."

Companies are using TikTok to stay relevant 

David's Bridal's bankruptcy is showing other companies in the wedding industry that those who don't adapt to modern couples could follow a similar fate. 

"Historically, the wedding industry has held tight to tradition without fully acknowledging the change in times and we are seeing it finally catch up to them," Joshi, the founder of Joy, said.

Adrienna McDermott spent nine years in the wedding industry before starting a marketing agency for wedding professionals called Ava and the Bee. She's found that young millennials and Gen Zers want to feel connected to the vendors they book for their weddings. 

"A decade ago, when I was first starting out in the industry, they were relying more on wedding expos or The Knot and WeddingWire," she said. "But we're seeing a lot of them are turning to social platforms and websites to really get a closer understanding of their vendors."

If a company like David's Bridal can't keep up with the modern bride, there are other brands that are happy to grab the business.

When news of the bankruptcy broke, Lee said Birdy Grey's website traffic spiked. "The lead time for a bride to decide to buy a bridesmaid dress from us is pretty long, so we're just starting to see the effects," she said. "But if you just look at pure site traffic, we've definitely seen a huge bump." Birdy Grey declined to share traffic figures with Insider. 

When she launched her company in 2017, Lee said it was "the epitome of an Instagram brand," and she was spending $10 a day on Facebook and Instagram ads. "We were able to drive $2 million revenue in our first year," she said. 

Today, Birdy Grey's digital-marketing strategy is a combination of paid search and paid social. But as the company builds brand awareness, more customers are coming through word of mouth. 

And then there's TikTok. 

"We've gone viral a couple times, and let me tell you, TikTok works," she laughed. "You'll see it reflected in site traffic and sales that same day."

While the brand creates its own content, customer tutorials and testimonies perform the best. One video in particular — of a customer picking bridesmaid dresses  — went viral and led to more fabric-swatch sales. 

"It really opened up my eyes for the power of TikTok," Lee said. "The marrying generation is now Gen Z so I feel like there's a subset of people who are completely skipping Instagram and going to TikTok to plan their weddings."