The Biggest Moments in Weddings in 2014

It was the year of the media-circus celebrity nuptials and the ones that happened in secret, plus a whole host of unforgettable entries for the history books. Join us as we press rewind and celebrate the past 12 months of matrimonial memories.

It’s hard to say which 2014 I do’s got more hype: Kim Kardashian and Kanye West’s grand Florence-by-way-of-Paris celebration in May, or Amal Alamuddin and George Clooney’s Venetian blowout in September. Both were days-long celebrations with A-list attendees (Kimye hosted newlyweds John Legend and Chrissy Teigen as well as Serena Williams and André Leon Talley; the Clooneys had Matt Damon, Bono, and Cindy Crawford); and featured one-of-a-kind dresses designed by Ricardo Tisci of Givenchy and Oscar de la Renta, respectively. 

We already love waking up to Sunday morning Instagrams of the night before’s nuptials, so imagine how ecstatic we get about secret celebrity weddings—some so under-the-radar that we didn’t hear about them for months later. Not even local officials in the French village where Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt exchanged vows saw their August party coming. In September, Mary-Kate Olsen and banker Olivier Sarkozy revealed they silently tied the knot earlier in the year; and just last week we caught wind that Scarlett Johansson and her French journalist beau married on October 1 in Montana. Other hush-hush unions this year? Alexis Bledel married Mad Men’s Vincent Kartheiser, and Leighton Meester made it official with Adam Brody.

We can’t really blame anyone for wanting to celebrate such a special day twice, and when it came to seeing model Poppy Delevingne walk down the aisle, we didn’t mind watching it more than once. At her first ceremony in London, she and bridesmaid sister Cara wore Chanel; the second was a desert hippie bash in Marrakech attended by Alexa Chung, Sienna Miller, Georgia May Jagger, and, oh, Joan Collins. 

We’ll never be ones to knock a cheeks-pressed-together pic of a bride and her ’maids, but leave it to Solange to take the coolest wedding portraits we’ve seen all year (or ever?) when the musician wed music video director Alan Ferguson in November in New Orleans. Photographer Rog Walker snapped Solange’s favorite females (that’s big sister, Beyoncé, to the left, to the left—sorry!) in a tableau inspired by contemporary Italian artist Vanessa Beecroft. 

And it might just be a matter of time before the high-fliers became part of every photographer’s skill sets. (For now, Parker Gyokeres of Propellerheads is leading the pack.) While drone legislature is still in the works, some venues have already taken a stance, such as the Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art in Nashville, which lists on its site: “Drones may not be used during public opening hours. Any drone photography outside of public hours must have written consent from the Marketing and Events department.”

Watch the full video

of the wedding pictured here that Parker Gyokeres shot with cinematographer William Hart.

By the end of this year, more than half of the nifty fifty will legally allow gay marriage. We’ll say cheers to that! 

We’re just calling it like we see it: A summer camp wedding is the new farm wedding. From Field Guide-inspired invites, to songs around the campfire, to s’mores everything, nuptials this year took a quirky turn for the nostalgic. 

The Pantone color of the year may have been radiant orchid, but we saw blushing bridesmaids everywhere we looked. The universally flattering hue even appeared at our Fall Issue cover girl Lauren Conrad’s September celebration. 

If there’s one word we found ourselves spell-checking over and over this year, it was “chimichurri.” The Argentinian green sauce appeared over grilled steak and with tacos at countless receptions. Dig in!

To celebrate the Spanish couture brand’s 50th anniversary in May, the 5’11” stunner strutted in a peekaboo dress in the show and took a photo with Pronovias’s 67 seamstresses, pattern makers, and embroiders. 

In what we’re calling the chicest cool-girl marriage of the year, fashion brand Honor designed a seven-dress collection for cult-fave shop Stone Fox Bride. The gowns stay true to SFB’s flower-child feel with a touch of Honor’s ’50s flair, all with the idea that the separates can be worn again. 

In August, Jurassic Park actor Jeff Goldblum ran with a wedding party for an historic (or should we say prehistoric?) photo op captured by Adam Biesenthal Photography that made the rounds on Buzzfeed and beyond. Earlier in June, Charleston resident Bill Murray waved down a couple and jumped into their engagement photos. Then in September, while Beyoncé and Jay-Z were vacationing in Portofino, they stumbled into a church where a ceremony was taking place, then posed with the bride for the most #flawless wedding portrait of all time. 

This year, we saw all of our favorite blooms on the small screen—on Instagram, that is. Floral designers such as Brooklyn’s Saipua (@Saipua) took to social networking as a way to show off pretty peonies and rad ranunculus, and, in the case of Amy Merrick (@amy_merrick), some insane travel shots. And new-to-the-game florist Taylor Tomasi Hill doesn’t even have a website; just her gorgeous feed of buds over at @TTHBlooms. 

Did Gone Girl freak anyone else out? Then there was Game of Thrones’s Purple Wedding (which, to be fair, had slightly less drama than last year’s Red Wedding), an awkward funeral-turned-wedding in Orange Is the New Black, and on Sherlock, the gumshoe solves an entire murder—while giving the wedding toast. Thankfully, all of these accounts are fictional! 

After five seasons and one daughter, Modern Family’s Mitchell and Cameron finally tied the knot in May. And in the show’s screwball way, the two-episode arc involved missing tuxedos, an officiant who goes into labor, and a California wildfire. But in the end, it was all about a Julie Bowen-delivered toast that gets us all misty-eyed just thinking about it. 

Of all the sway-worthy songs to choose for your first dance, Ed Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud” is the definitive ballroom ballad of the year. Lyrics like “Darling, I will be loving you ’til we’re 70” make it totally wedding-appropriate. Expect “awwws.”

We haven’t met a person yet who doesn’t have dreams about Momofuku Milk Bar’s dense, sugary cake truffles, which currently come in b’day, cranberry gingerbread, and mint cookies n’ cream. And now, they’ll pile them high in a croquembouche for your big day. Drooling yet?

Stationer Lisa Hedge uses clipped floral images and clean typefaces in her insanely covetable line of wedding ephemera, from save-the-dates to menu cards, all of which have earned her our one-to-watch status, especially throughout 2015 as she officially launches her site.

On October 20, the Dominican American designer passed, leaving behind a rich legacy of unforgettable fashion moments. He dressed first ladies and brides alike (including Amal Clooney and Kate Bosworth) in his always-elegant designs. Oscar’s dresses not only made brides look beautiful, they made them feel that way, too.