2024 Wedding Trends

Champagne Towers

Your Ultimate Guide

We’re guessing if you’re reading this post that you harbour a love for the classic champagne tower. Chic and incredibly fun to boot, this is one trend we’ve seen really gaining momentum over the last 18 months or so with our couples here at Iscoyd. We love creating them and we adore watching the reactions on our brides and grooms’ faces as the champagne cascades like a waterfall down sides of the coupes.

There’s something in the champagne tower that harks back to the more glamorous days of the past, to Hollywood movie stars, to elegance, grace and a sense of occasion. As the photos below attest, the Champagne Tower makes for the most wonderful photo opportunity too. Plus if you’re looking for an element of drama on your wedding day, an added bit of sparkle, this is a great way to make your budget work for you by providing your guests with drinks that they otherwise would have received but presenting them in a unique and novel way so as to make a spectacle of the event. A kind of two for one if you will.

 

Images by Harvey Films

 

Where And When?

First things first, it’s worth taking a moment to decide when and where you want your Champagne Tower to feature in the wedding day proceedings. Will you use it to kick off your drinks reception after your ceremony or will it take the place of a more traditional cake cutting? Perhaps it will signify the start of the evening part of your wedding day, just before the entertainment starts and the dance floor opens.

Once you’ve decided when to do the Champagne Tower this will dictate where the setup will take place. Here at Iscoyd we’ve set up towers outside in the gardens for couples at the beginning of their drinks receptions in the Summer or alternatively in our Drawing Room when the weather looks a little more temperamental. We’ve also positioned coupes on the edge of our dance floor as a metaphorical ribbon cutting to open up the evening fun and created them in our permanent marquee for couples who’ve chosen champagne to replace cakes.

Ideally you want your set up to be as close as possible to whichever activity you’re looking to mark; from a practical perspective it limits the possibility of breakages but also indicates to your guests that something EXCITING will be happening here which builds the anticipation for things to come.

Images by Alex Wysocki Photography

 

Building The Tower

Most venues will handle the logistics of setting up the tower for you but there are some factors to bear in mind that you may wish to share with your event organisers. The process of creating a champagne tower isn’t too complicated, in fact it’s much easier than it looks! We’ve created towers in square and in circular formats and positioned them on a round table. This enables couples to get closer to the tower to pour plus it looks more aesthetically pleasing than a rectangular or square surface.

Think about the height of the table you are going to place the tower on as well as the number of levels of glasses you would like. You want to make sure from a photography perspective that you are able to reach the top comfortably for the pour. It’s worth mentioning that you don’t need hundreds of glasses to create an impressive champagne tower.

Do you want every guest to be able to have a glass from the tower, or are you happy for some to be served from trays? We think the sweet spot ranges from four or five tiers whereas six to eight tiers is more traditional and accommodates a greater number of guests. 

If you are setting up the tower yourselves then it’s imperative that the glasses you use that are all exactly the same. Practise in advance of your wedding if you are doing it yourself and make sure that your table is sturdy and positioned on a level surface. It’s wise to have at least a handful of ‘spare’ glasses just in case of breakages.

The Champagne Tower is a wonderful photo opportunity – much like the more traditional cutting of the cake – and ‘the pour’ is the most important shot of all. It’s always nice to get some shots before of the tower before being filled and after the champagne is poured and the ‘first sip of champagne’ as a married couple, too. Will you both pour from separate bottles, take it in turns or hold the same bottle together? Let your photographer know that you’ll be featuring this as part of your day so they can get set up perfectly to capture the shot.

Images by Alex Boswell Photography

 

Make It Your Own

Just because it’s called a champagne tower doesn’t mean that you have to use champagne. If you prefer drinking Crément or Prosecco then ask your venue to fill your glasses with your chosen beverage instead. If you’re looking for added impact then we would recommend a Rosé champagne for a colour injection! For those couples marrying at Iscoyd, why not choose our own Iscoyd Champagne to seal the deal.

Consider your surroundings. Setups positioned outside flanked by summer blooms are always going to be incredibly pretty but if you’re hampered by inclement weather and need to set up indoors consider styling up the table in other ways instead. Opting for a patterned, or even a sequin tablecloth underneath your glasses is a fantastic way to add instant appeal and ties in with your wider colour scheme too.

Alternatively ramp up your glassware and choose coupes that have cut glass details or etched motifs for added interest and to catch the light. You could even take it one step further and select glasses that have golden details or gilding on them. We loved Laura and Adam’s wedding which we featured on the Iscoyd blog recently who used edible flowers in their champagne coupes for a beautiful finish.

More importantly, have fun. This is all about you as a couple commemorating your day so how you choose to do it is up to you.

Images by Barbara Markiewicz Photography

 

Will you be including a Champagne Tower into your wedding day? Have you attended a wedding where one has been a part of the celebrations? What was the most memorable part for you?

Our thanks as always go to each of the photographers featured in the post and allowing us to share these images on our blog.

All our Iscoyd love

xxx