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The newest wedding trend
Never before has fragrance made its way into weddings and honeymoons as it
does now. Abbie Kozolchyk follows the trail of this aromatic phenomenon.
Bridal insiders, who’ve seen every party trend—the rise of the eco-
chuppah to the fall of the cupcake tower—are noting a cool new
one: wedding scenting. “This can mean anything from creating
an atmosphere with flowers, herbs and candles to working on
your own wedding-day fragrance with a perfumer,” says Adam
Glassman, director of operations at Tribeca Rooftop, home to
many of NYC’s chicest nuptials. ¶ Alexandra Foote and Dan-
iel Patterson of Marin County, CA, did both. Alexandra says
she’s always been into fragrance, so the idea of incorporating

Photographs by Alex Cao

294 ModernBride
 k ia g ra n o f/ar t depar t men t
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Couples are drawing inspiration from any

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number of fragrant sources. Clockwise from

top: nutmeg, pink grapefruit, basil, cinna-
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orchid, ginger, cocoa, lavender, green tea.

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ModernBride 295
 it into their winter wedding “was a Couples are
scent branding
logical extension.” From the rosemary
scattered during the procession to the
black tea–scented candles placed on
the altar, no detail went undeliberated. their weddings,
Especially the perfume of choice.
The aesthetic of the day was rich using the
and wintry (birch branches and deer
antlers as design accents, a dark power of
brown Carolina Herrera skirt and
charcoal corset as bridal attire, and scent to make
the moody Marin Headlands above
the Golden Gate Bridge as backdrop), the experience
and the couple wanted to capture that
feeling in a fragrance. Mandy Aftel, a
stand out in
Berkeley, CA–based natural perfumer
and founder of Aftelier Perfumes, was
guests’ minds.
charged with the task.
After smelling approximately 50
essences, Alexandra narrowed her choices to cedar, nutmeg,
cocoa, coffee, Peru balsam, ginger and pink grapefruit. “The
scent was perfectly evocative,” she recalls. “I had Mandy
make a solid version in sterling lockets for my bridesmaids,
and we gave a liquid in tiny bottles to each guest at the
reception.” The scent was a success—not least for the bride
and groom, both of whom wore the fragrance that day and
continue to do so. “The smell takes me back to our most
profound moment and treasured day,” Daniel says.
And Aftel isn’t surprised: “Scent links you directly to
your memories,” she says. “Smell is the most primitive of
the five senses,” adds Chandler Burr, scent critic for T, The
New York Times Style Magazine and author of The Perfect
Scent: A Year Behind the Scenes of the Perfume Industry in
Paris and New York. “When a scent is overlaid onto an expe-
rience, your memory of it will be not only heightened but
longer lasting and more accurate.”
But this phenomenon alone doesn’t account for the trend
at issue. As for what does, the theories vary. One cannot
discount the celebrity factor; with each passing week,
it seems that another A-lister—whether it’s Sean
Combs or Shania
Twain, David Beck-
ham or Maria
Sharapova—
launches a fragrance.
Among musicians, most
recently Prince and Hilary Duff, it’s
becoming common to link a song title to
their fragrance’s name.
Also contributing to the interest in scent
are two lesser-known names: Richard
Axel and Linda Buck. These researchers
are the corecipients of the 2004 Nobel
Prize in Physiology or Medicine “for
their discoveries of odorant recep-
296 ModernBride
tors and the organization of the olfac-
tory system.” “Few things have done
more to boost scent’s profile of late
than the awarding of the Nobel Prize,”
says Rachel Herz, Ph.D., a visiting
professor in the department of psy-
chiatry and human behavior at Brown
University Medical School in Provi-
dence, RI, and author of The Scent of
Desire. “Not only has scent research
become more legitimized within the
scientific community—and better
funded—but there’s a greater public
awareness of scent’s power as well.”
What has emerged, she contends,
is a whole new zeitgeist—one that
finally acknowledges scent’s rightful
place among music, food and lighting
(the classic mood-boosting pantheon)
at any special event. “Scent had remained a largely unex-
plored component of sensory enrichment; only in the past
few years is that changing.”
Oddly, ever more restrictive smoking laws seem to play
a significant role in the wedding-scent trend, says Alan
Hirsch, M.D., founder and neurological director of the Smell
& Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago.
“Until not too long ago, cigarette smoke would obscure
most scents at any event, including a wedding,” he explains.
“With the sharp decline in public smoking, however, people
are more aware and appreciative of ambient aroma—our
sense of smell is actually improving as smoke-damaged
olfactory receptors regenerate—so you have a sensory void
that needs to be filled.”
But he believes there’s more to the equation. “When you
add aroma into the sensory theater that is a wedding, you
achieve all kinds of effects.” One of the best is communal
anxiety reduction: “You’ll likely have lots of strangers meet-
ing for the first time, and a pleasant aroma can induce a
calming, unifying effect,” says Dr. Hirsch. “It
becomes part of a shared, happy experience
on the most intrinsic level.”
And in providing that experience, you’re
trafficking in another layer of the
trend: scent branding. “There’s
a movement toward branding an
experience with fragrance,” says NYC-
based fragrance consultant Ann Gottlieb,
“and weddings are no exception.” The idea
is to use scent’s primal power to make an
experience stand out in guests’ minds.
The Sisterhood of Scent
Brides are taking ever greater advantage of the
scent-memory link—sometimes at the prompt-
ing of the women in their lives. “I’m actually not
 much of a perfume wearer,” says Jessica Weinberg of NYC.
“But my stepmother wanted to take me shopping for a wed-
ding scent—something I’d be able to wear later that would
remind me of that day.” Though Jessica went home empty-
handed (sensory overload isn’t uncommon under the circum-
stances), her stepmother noted that Jo Malone’s Pomegranate
Noir had emerged the clear favorite. “She gave me the fra-
grance on the morning of my wedding,” recounts Jessica. “It
was such a sweet surprise that it really became a part of the
day; in fact, it was out on the bed when I was getting ready,
and the photographer took the most beautiful pictures of it.”
Lindsay Leaf chose Creed’s Fleurissimo, the perfume
commissioned for Grace Kelly’s wedding. “My mother gave
me the idea to find a new scent for my wedding, so that I
would always have a trigger to bring me right back to that
day,” says Lindsay, of NYC. “The only downside is
that I really love the perfume but I have to try
not to wear it much, so that when I do wear it,
it will maintain that unique quality.”
The New Space Scenters
However lengthy your deliberations over
the right wedding fragrance, they can
become all the more protracted in the
face of the ambient aroma possibili-
ties. Gone are the days of the simple
sachet, notes Dr. Hirsch. “We now have
the technology to introduce scents over
greater areas and in endless varieties.”
From scent machines—which can pipe any-
thing from citrus to cinnamon into your site—to
custom candles, fragranced extras present innumerable
ways to enhance a mood.
“Weddings tend to use multiple spaces,” says Sasha
Souza, an event planner in Napa, CA. “So if you want, you
can give each space its own signature scent—say, a light flo-
ral for the ceremony, an energizing citrus mix for the dance
space, and chocolate in the dessert hall.” And scent machines
tend to be the most efficient means: Small (roughly one
cubic foot) and not crazy-expensive (rentals start at $300),
one can fragrance a 2,000-square-foot space with a single
cartridge. “The best scents for weddings are subtle, since
you have to think about potential fragrance allergies,” says
Souza. “You want guests to walk in and think, ‘Mmmm, it
smells good in here,’ not ‘Wow, that’s a lot of fragrance.’”
A dditio n al r epo r tin g b y c r ist i L. Ha ns en
Souza’s top cartridge picks: summer leaves, Japanese green
tea, orange blossom and chocolate.
Or consider customized candles, such as those by Reve
de Vivre. Whether the bride and groom want to capture
aspects of their respective pasts or commemorate mutual
moments (say, the smell of the garden where he popped the
question), Reve de Vivre will compile the necessary ingredi-
ents to concoct the appropriate candle.
But scent design doesn’t have to consist of anything
elaborate, notes Burr: “It can also be simple and straight-
forward. You could, for example, place several bouquets of
fragrant lilies in a hallway through which guests will pass—
and a gesture as simple as that will still mark the event.”
Scents of Place
The event is no less deserving of being marked if it happens
to be taking place on a palm-fringed island or pine-topped
mountain. In fact, destination weddings make a particu-
larly compelling case for scented elements: “When guests
travel from far away, fragrance is one of the best ways you
can make them feel welcome,” says Tara Soloway, cofounder
of Luxe Destination Weddings, which just launched Luxe
Island Scents, destination-specific aromatherapy for brides,
grooms and guests. Prearrival, visitors can develop a “signa-
ture scent”—a blend of two fragrances chosen from a menu
at such resorts as El Dorado Royale in Mexico’s Riviera
Maya—to fill their room. “In candles or burning oils, the
fragrance creates a warm, inviting atmo-
sphere, and it becomes the scent that
represents your time together.” The
bonus: You have a souvenir that also
serves as a wedding favor for guests
(send them home with bottles of the
oil) and a cloud-nine prolonger for you.
And the idea is catching: Scot-
land’s Pool House hotel had to
relocate its resident perfumer
to a nearby site because his
fragrance-customization pro-
gram proved so popular that
he outgrew his in-house space. In
other cases, honeymooners find themselves
falling in love with a property’s own signa-
ture scent (more and more hotels have them) and
refusing to leave without a bottle (e.g. Ocean from the
Cove in the Bahamas), candle (White Tea from any Westin)
or oil (the one used for your couples massage). Beyond
evoking the best conceivable memories, these scents
serve as figurative transporters when you need an instant
getaway. “Hotels are investing in fragrance so that scent
will forever remain embedded in your mind,” adds Gott-
lieb, who deems her own infatuation with the sublimely
scented rooms at the Four Seasons Hotel George V Paris
the perfect example of the idea’s efficacy.
However sweet-smelling your hotel room, it’s eclipsed by
yet another—more fundamental—aspect of the trend: how
scent can mark your commitment to another human being.
“Fragrance is a way to forge a new identity,” says Aftel.
“With any significant life change, and especially a wedding,
a lot of people want a new scent; it’s like a piece of you
changes, and you imprint that piece with a scent—and then
you go forward with it.” Happily ever after.
Abbie Kozolchyk writes regularly for Allure, Forbes Traveler
and other publications. She lives in New York.
ModernBride 297