From Mirrored Tiles to Serpentine Aisles — Celeb Event Planner Colin Cowie Breaks Down Latest Wedding Trends

When it comes to weddings, one of the biggest trends right now is decking out your aisle.

Celebrity event planner Colin Cowie — whose been in the business for 30 years and has a long list of A-list clients including Oprah, Jennifer Aniston,  Tom Cruise, Ryan Seacrest and Kim Kardashian — is breaking down all the ways to make a show-stopping entrance at your “I do’s”.

“I always say the ceremony is the most important part of the wedding,” Cowie tells PEOPLE exclusively. “A bride has thought about every single detail a thousand times in anticipation of that walk down the aisle. It’s a very powerful moment in a wedding. And whether she’s coming down with her father, on her own, flanked by ballerinas, with her dog, it really is, it’s a big moment.”

Colin Miller Photography

Cowie continues: “It’s her opportunity to make her statement of style. It’s the first time we really see the whole story. All we’ve received so far is an invitation and maybe access to a website. But the ceremony and the bride’s attire gives us a very good indication of what’s to come.”

Because the entrance is such an important moment, Cowie says he’s seeing more and more couples opt to make it a grander event, though that hasn’t always been the case.

Celebrity Wedding Dress Designer Galia Lahav Shares Her Advice for Brides to Find the Perfect Gown (Exclusive)

“The aisle comes from a place of worship, right? So your place of worship always had a straight aisle. And if you were really fancy, you rolled out a white linen runner, and just before the bride walked down to a fanfare of a couple of trumpets, and you thought that was it,” he says.

Colin Miller Photography

Aisles, as with all areas of planning, have been super-stylized and hyper-designed explains Cowie. “They need to tell stories,” he says adding, “We no longer just use a straight aisle with the ceremony at the end of it.”

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

He adds that says some people are also opting to change up the shape of their ceremony by adding a circular landing center, in which guests are set up in concentric circles around the altar in the middle.

“What’s so lovely is all your guests are extremely intimate and very close to you” he says.

Colin Cowie.

Sonia Moskowitz/Getty Images

Should You Propose at Someone Else’s Wedding? An Etiquette Expert Weighs In (Exclusive)

The circle isn’t the only way to modernize your aisle. Serpentine aisles can add an organic feel. Cowie has also designed weddings with four quadrant seating areas in which the bridal party and groomsmen come in at the cross of each quadrant, which allows the ceremony to “have even more elements of drama.”

But the biggest trend of all, says Cowie, is mirrored aisles. “Sometimes it’s real mirror, which is pretty extraordinary and quite difficult to install, but often plexi mirror is used, which sometimes can create seams and a bubble here and there. But the idea of working with reflective surfaces has become very, very… It’s the kind of material du jour. ”

Colin Miller Photography

He adds: “And if one is working with plexi, we’ve seen people at a beach wedding do turquoise plexi mirror or gold plexi mirror. We can also do frosted as well, which gives you the idea of something that is luminous, but it’s not actually a hundred percent reflective.”

From ‘Garden Attire’ to ‘Colorful Formal’ Celebrity Wedding Planners Break Down Wedding Dress Codes (Exclusive)

For a recent client’s nuptials in Cannes, “We emptied a swimming pool completely,” he recalls. “We went inside and then we built a platform for a runway for the full length of the swimming pool, added moss to the sides then filled the pool up with water again. So the bride literally was walking on water.”

He says they often line the edges of the reflective aisle with a “little bit of bronze” or a “metal trim” to “keep it clean and contemporary” and also use foliage and flowers. Though he adds that if greenery is added, it needs to be done with a light touch. 

Calen Rose

All the Celebrity Weddings of 2023

“It’s not just about making it look pretty. It has to be functional as well,” he explains, noting that sometimes large foliage hinders the guests’ view of the wedding. “It’s not functional if the guests cannot see the bride walking down the aisle and participate in any part of the ceremony.” 

For brides who want the extravagant detail, but are on a lower budget, he suggests opting for a plexi mirror finish and that can be installed in certain areas, like the landing area or altar, instead of the whole floor.

For people who want the aisle to have special meaning, Cowie says couples can also order tiles with decal stickers that can be printed along the aisle or landing area. These can contain the names of guests or even a wedding logo.

Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education