Welcome to 2026! The Bodleian Weddings Team hopes that you have had a fabulous festive season, but now that the leftovers have been eaten and the party poppers have been cleaned up, it’s time to talk about the wedding trends for 2026.
All throughout 2025, the whole team has had plenty of opportunity to oversee an incredible number of weddings, from micro elopements to big evening parties. This article contains photographs all from real weddings we have held at the Bodleian in 2025, so you can gather some real tried and true inspiration for your big day. So do see below for what we think are going to be the upcoming wedding trends for 2026!
Personalisation
This might seem like a strange one, are weddings not already incredibly personal? But what this means is adding more personal touches to the Big Day. This could be having photos or illustrations on your orders of service for the guests, or personalised keep sakes for guests when they sit down to dinner. This could be as simple as a wax seal monogram of you and your newlywed’s initials on top of the menu for dinner. It’s an elegant personalised touch, without feeling too overbearing.
You could also add to this as well, one couple this year had a message for each guest in a small envelope, sealed with the monogram of the couples initials as a wax seal.
If you’re looking for inspiration for personalisation, don’t be afraid to add in details of your venue too! A couple gave away mini decorations as part of their wedding favours, with a little linocut print of the Old Bodleian’s next-door neighbour the Radcliffe Camera on it.
If you feel like going a step further, and order in customised monogram linen napkins, with a bow embroidered with the guests name on it to pair with it. There’s nothing quite like having something to commemorate your special day by gifting a memento to take home.
Or maybe you prefer gifting your guests with something edible? In 2025, one couple gave out mini bottles of maple syrup to guests as they sat down for the Wedding Breakfast. Not only symbolising the sweetness of the day, but a playful nod to the Canadian background of one half of the couple.
Or you could even take personalisation one step further, not only asking our wonderful Wedding Caterers Oxford Fine Dining to serve specific cocktails but even naming them too. One of our couples this year decided to name their twin cocktails after their cats, complete with pet portraits as well.
Signage is also getting a revamp for 2026, gone are the simple couple names and wedding date – welcome signs are becoming much more personality driven. A couple this past year had a couples quiz on their welcome sign, as well as a small world map showing the places guests have travelled from. Crosswords as well as wordsearches have also used on wedding signage, generating interaction between guests as they try to guess the answers.
If your looking to add a few more personalised touches to place settings, menus, welcome signs and more – the best people to contact would be one of our recommended stationers, they’re all fantastically creative each with their own style, so we’re sure there will be something for you!
Statement & Retro Cakes
Gone is the standard three-tiers with white icing, it’s all about statement and retro cakes (although we don’t mean heavy fruit cake!). One of our favourite cakes we saw at the Bodleian this year was an incredibly crafty Origami themed cake. One half of the couple works in graphic design, and wanted something to signify their love of all things paper. The result was a truly magnificent cake with 3D touches crafted from sugar paper – the “flying” cranes also have a hidden meaning, as they are considered symbols of luck and prosperity in Japan.
In the world of Retro Cakes, the most popular style we’ve seen at the Bodleian is the Lambeth cake. This style of decorating originated in Europe during the 1800s, and it’s method of over-piping icing to resemble theatre curtains harkens back to a bygone era of Victoriana. The piped ruffles create a fabulous texture to contrast the smooth icing, and many Lambeth cakes feature bright colours to highlight this difference. A couple from 2025, decided to keep the whole cake white, but the retro flair still shines through!
Another excellent option if you’re looking for a twist on the traditional wedding cake is a Millefoglie. If you are curious as to what a Millefoglie is, please do take at look at one of our previous posts where we covered Dolce Lusso and her live Millefoglie preparation and presentation.
Dolce Lusso is one of our recommended cake bakers at the Bodleian Libraries, and we encourage you all to take a look at the whole menu we have for cake bakers, all of whom can create the perfect sweet treat for your wedding day!
Unconventional Food
Leading on from wedding cakes, another trend for 2026 is unconventional food. We’re not expecting couples to go full Heston Blumenthal, but the trend is about doing away with the typical canapes and menu choices for the Wedding Breakfast. Our Wedding Partner Caterers are Oxford Fine Dining, who have a whole host of menus to choose from. Do take a look at their vegan or seasonal menus, or even the environmentally-friendly conscious collection to see what Oxford Fine Dining can do!
Additionally, you don’t even need to tweak with the menu and could add on something different or fun for the Drinks Reception or evening snacks. For a Summer wedding, a couple decided to book an ice cream cart to be in the Old Schools Quad for the Drinks Reception, giving guests the option of an ice cream treat alongside their bubbly.
Evening food is also now having a bit of a re-think. Traditionally, the wedding cake has been served for a late-night snack, but for 2026 couples are starting to think a bit more communal. Do have a look at the sharing platters Oxford Fine Dining can add onto your evening, and the rest of their delicious evening options. One couple with a sweet tooth decided to set up a pick & mix table for guests to well, pick & mix their favourite sweeties for the evening. If you’re low on energy, this will certainly give you a sugar rush!
Stately Home Weddings
It’s no surprise that the success of Bridgerton has led to a huge upsurge in Stately Home Weddings, and we see this trend continuing into 2026. The clue might be in our name, but we are not a stately home at the Bodleian Libraries! We are however, a venue which is considerably older than many of the stately homes across the UK (the Divinity School is just under 600 years old, and still looking fantastic). If you’re looking a wedding venue steeped in British Heritage, you cannot go wrong with the Bodleian.
Our centuries-old honey-coloured stone is the perfect warm tone for your Big Day. Creating a warm and welcoming atmosphere for you and your guests. Arriving through the Wren Door creates a fantastic first impression, approaching you’ll see the magnificent glass windows of the Divinity School before walking through the Ancient Wren Door. If you look above you might spot an open book, with a message written in Greek upon it. This translates to “They found Him among the Doctors”, from the Book of Luke in the New Testament.
For couples having just a Reception with us, you’ll be entering via the Great Gate and enjoying your drinks reception in the Old Schools Quadrangle. This is a private courtyard for you and your guests to enjoy drinks and canapes, whilst soaking in the Oxfordian surroundings. The most impressive part of the Old Schools is the Tower of the Five Orders, built in the early 1600s. As you enjoy sipping on bubbly, do take a moment to read all the names in Latin above the doors around the Quad, at one point these were all teaching classrooms. The Bodleian is truly a unique venue, so do take the opportunity to commemorate your Wedding Day using your immediate surroundings.
If you really want to create a personalised intimate moment, then do talk to us about adding a private couple’s photoshoot in the Duke Humfrey’s Library. The Library originally dates back to the 1400s (making it as historic as the Divinity School!) but was refurbished and reopened in the 1600s. Upon walking through it’s doors many couples are in awe of the beauty of this library, and remark upon the earthy scent of the ancient books in it’s shelves. For a literary-loving couple, we cannot recommend the Duke Humfrey’s Library enough to capture some incredible memories on your most special day. If you’re still looking for a photographer, do take a look at our recommended photographers.
If you’re interested in learning more about the hidden histories of the Bodleian, do take a look at one of our previous journal posts.
Intimate Weddings
As well as big, stately Weddings, smaller more intimate Weddings are also seeing a surge of popularity. If you’re more of an introvert, then perhaps a small but close knit gathering is your perfect way to celebrate your dream day. We have plenty of options for Small Weddings at the Bodleian. You can chose to have just a ceremony with us (and then pick your reception venue of choice) or if you want to keep all the celebrations at the Bodleian, you can choose between a Ceremony & Lunch or a Ceremony & Dinner. We do have a long and in-depth journal post that goes through each option, so do have a read.
With smaller guest numbers in the Divinity School, you can get much more playful with your reception layout in the venue. This year, we saw an intimate wedding with about 30 guests, and when a wedding has this amount of guests we would usually recommend a long table in the Divinity School as it really suits the space and adds to the Oxfordian feel of the venue. The couple worked with one of our recommended wedding planners, Katie Lou Weddings, who suggested a Serpentine tablesetting for the couple.
Serpentine Tables (also known as Caterpillar Tables) are an elegant, but creative way to mix up the classic long table setting. It is achieved by connecting a series of round tables in a zig-zag fashion. You can see in the above picture the Serpentine Table the couple had on their Big Day and we think it’s a fantastic choice for intimate receptions at the Bodleian. If you feel like you might need an extra hand on your wedding day, do take a look at all of our recommended wedding planners.
Your Big Day, Your Own Way
To connect all of our points together, one of the significant themes for Wedding trends in 2026 is “Your Big Day, Your Own Way”, this is remembering that your Big Day as a couple is to celebrate your love story. Whilst there is pressure to go along with family or friends expectations, this is really important to remember when planning your wedding or choosing suppliers together. For you both it really is your Big Day and you want to celebrate that in your own style!
At the Bodleian Libraries, not only do we hold legal weddings overseen by the Oxfordshire Registry Office, we also greatly enjoy celebrant-led weddings as well. The key different between a registrar-led wedding and a celebrant-led wedding is that at the end of a registrar-led wedding, the couple is legally married whereas with a celebrant-led wedding they are not.
But the beauty of a celebrant-led ceremony is that anyone can lead it! Quite often couples pick a close friend or family member to lead the ceremony, but there are plenty of professional celebrants who are experts at crafting your love story. If you need somewhere to start, do take a look at our list of recommended celebrants.
Unlike registrar weddings, which must be held in a licensed room (which is only the Divinity School or Convocation House at the Bodleian Libraries), we can be much more flexible for celebrant-led ceremonies at the Bodleian. This year we had an upsurge in tiny elopement ceremonies in the Duke Humfrey’s Library. Whilst you would be unable to be legally married in this space, or have large groups of guests – it’s a perfect spot for an intimately romantic elopement.
And that’s us done for all the Wedding Trends of 2026! We hope you have enjoyed reading this journal article, and if you have any questions please do get in touch!
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