Top Wedding Hashtags on Instagram

You’ve waited months for the big day, and then another couple of weeks for the photographer to get your photos back to you – and they’re stunning.

Now you want to put them up on Instagram – but you don’t know how to hashtag them to get the biggest audience for your beautiful photos.

In this article, we’ve collected some of the biggest performing and fastest growing wedding hashtags of the app to help you out.

We’ve also put together a small section on why hashtags are so important when you’re trying to grow your online presence.

When can Wedding Hashtags be useful? 

There are two main reasons to use wedding hashtags – when planning your wedding or when trying to grow your audience on Instagram. 

See below for how hashtags can help you out in these cases: 

Researching and Planning for Your Wedding

For years Pinterest was king when it came to collection inspiration and creating mood boards due to its superior classification systems. However, due to the rise of its hashtag system, Instagram has carved out its own niche in the #inspo world.

Searching through the hashtags relating to your wedding ideas will provide you with endless inspiration.

Most photographers are now also on Instagram, as well as many caterers, dress designers and wedding planners – Instagram can be a great place to source all the people you need to put your wedding together.

You may also find these wedding planners helpful during this process:

World Printed Products Wedding Planner

Your Perfect Day Floral Gold Planner

From The Caledonia Design Co

 

Growing your Instagram Audience 

The other use of Instagram hashtags is to use them as a tool to grow your audience on the platform. 

But how, using hashtags can expose your posts to a wider audience – the more hashtags you use, the wider that audience will get. It has also been shown that using hashtags can increase engagement on your post by over 12%. 

How many hashtags should you use? 

Instagram allows its users to use up to 30 hashtags per post – but bare in mind, just because you can do this doesn’t mean that you should. Keep your hashtags relevant as you can get banned for spamming unrelated feeds. 

A picture of you on the ski slopes could include up to 30 hashtags similar to #skiing #hittheslopes #snow #winter #skiseason. 

Should I be hashtagging my Instagram stories?

YES! 

Instagram has introduced a feature that allows your hashtagged Stories to be searched and viewed alongside posts in the hashtags feed. 

Stories offer you a more intimate way to interact with your followers. Studies show that views prefer stories to be less curated, as this is the area they view when they are looking to get to know a creator more. 

Hashtagging your stories will expose your posts to a greater audience, who will then be drawn to your feed.   

Where can I find popular hashtags?

There are many ways to discover what hashtags are currently trending and popular. If you don’t have time to do the research yourself you can use articles like this one (where we’ve done all the work for you. 

Otherwise if you have an idea of what kind of hashtags you’d like to use, simply search them in your instagram search bar – underneath the hashtag it will tell you how many posts have existed with this hashtag. 

There are also many websites like top-hashtags.com that track hashtag activity – simpily search a keyword and the website will list the top 10 hashtags including this word.

How can I track if my hashtags are successful?

By switching your instagram account to a business account (you will need to create a relevant facebook page to link to this), which is free, you will be given access to a wide range of ‘insights’.

These insights will allow you to track how your audience is interacting with each of your posts, as well as giving you a better idea of who your audience are and how they use the app.

The insights will show you the age split of your followers, where they come from and most usefully what time of day they use the app most.

The insights section also has a feature that allows you to track interaction with your posts. Most usefully it can show you the interactions relating to each hashtag – i.e which hashtags are drawing people to your photos.

These insights are by far the most useful tool for tracking any kind of success on Instagram, so we urge you to switch over to a business profile if you haven’t already.

Bonus Tips

Hashtag any brands that you are using in the photo. Many brands search their hashtags and re-share the posts – drawing more of an audience to your page. It is also worth tagging these brands in the picture as well.

Use the insights feature to time when you should be publishing your photos. Getting the timing of posts right can be the difference between 1 view per minute and 100 views per minute.

You can now put clickable hashtags in your instagram bio – this is a great opportunity to create a personal hashtag unique to you and your audience, that possible new members can browse through to see what you and your personal brand are about.

Top Wedding Hashtags Categories

Below we’ve broken down your wedding day posts into 8 main categories, and gathered some of the top and upcoming hashtags you should be using to post your photos.

Personal hashtags

Make sure to make a unique hashtag specific to the wedding – mashing up the couples name and adding the date often works well – i.e #Ledie2020.

This means someone can search it to see all the posts just from this wedding.

It will be great if you get your guests using the hashtag to share their own personal photos on the day. This will give you a collection of lovely photos to look back on, but it will also create more of a buzz around the event online.

The #Theme

weddingtheme -(254k posts) This is a great overarching hashtag that you should be using no matter what theme wedding you are having.

[ #wedding #ourtheme #weddingguide]

cottagecore – (685k posts) Cottage Core is the new trend on the block, that completely exploded onto the scene in 2020. This hashtag couples well with #vintage and #rustic.

[ #cottagelife #pastelwedding #cottagegoals]

mimimalistwedding – (26k posts) Minimalism is another trend gaining traction in all areas of instagram. This will work well for weddings with neutral pallets and paired down themes.

[ #minimalist #simplewedding #minimilistgoals]

vintagewedding – (1.1 million posts) The vintage theme wedding hashtag has been going strong since the early 2010s and shows no signs of slowing down. This is definitely a must do for wedding hashtagging.

[ #vintagegoals #vintagedress #vintagecouple]

rusticwedding – (1.8 million posts) Another stable of the instagram hashtag world. It’s worth looking at what areas of your wedding could apply this hashtag to, to make the most of its popularity.

[ #pintrestwedding #handmadewedding #rusticgoals]

alternativewedding – (284k posts) This is a great catch-all hashtag for anything that doesn’t fit into the traditional western idea of a wedding – be it tattoos, non-white dresses, unusual rings.

[ #emowedding #darkwedding #weddingink]

beachwedding – (2.1 million posts) This is one of the titans of wedding hashtags, this feed will fill you with envy and dreams of white, sandy beaches. If you’re having a beach wedding, or wedding photos taken on the beach – use this one!

[ #bohowedding #islandwedding #decorcasamento]

gaywedding – (389k posts) Another large category that caters for a wide variety of users. Any gay wedding should be using this hashtag, as well as at least one of the above hashtags.

[ #lovewins #lesbianwedding #wifeandwife #husbandandhusband]

The #Dress

weddingdress – (36.9 million posts) This is a must have hashtag for any photo containing your wedding dress.

vintagedress – (2 million posts) Like the #vintage and #vintagewedding tags this hashtag pulls in big numbers of views. The popularity of vintage dresses has not dipped in the last few years.

[ #olddress #vintagelove #vintagelove]

prelovedress – (723k posts) This is a great hashtag that has strong pulling power as it piggybacks off the popularity of the eco and anti-fast fashion movements. It also works well with #vintage and #rustic feeds.

[ #slowfashion #ecowedding #reusereducerecycle]

bohodress – (307k posts) Bohemian weddings are all the rage at the moment, they also perform well on sites like Pintrest and Instagram. As the idea of #Boho is very loose so many different style dresses will be able to make use of this hashtag.

[ #bohemian #sohowedding #casualwedding]

whitedress – (2.6 million posts) Another classic wedding dress hashtag. Despite the rise of alternative wedding dresses there are still incredibly large numbers of people looking for inspiration for the traditional white dresses.

bridemaidsdress – (397k posts) Don’t forget to show a little hashtagging love to your bridesmaids and their dresses. There are plenty of bride- to-be searching for flattering bridesmaids dresses that won’t lose them any friends.

[ #bridesmaids #motherofthebride #bridalparty]

The #Inspo

weddinginspo – (21.3 million posts) This is the perfect starting point for setting up your wedding hashtags. All of your wedding photos should include this hashtag.

weddingoals – (1.3 million posts) Same as above, this is an essential wedding photo hashtag.

neutralpallet – (206k posts) Although not exclusively a wedding hashtag this is a great one to include if it fits your wedding theme. It draws many views, including people who might not realise they will enjoy your content.

[#pastelwedding #neutralwedding #blushpallet]

weddingplanner – (14.3 million posts) Your wedding planner may ask you to use this hashtag as many people now source their wedding planners through the platform.

[ #weddingplanning #planmywedding #weddinggoals]

ourwedding – (177k posts) This is a great hashtag for all of your pre-wedding content, as well as during your wedding and after it.

[ #weddingfavours #weddingdreams #weddingday]

The #Photographer

weddingphotographer – Just like hashtagging your wedding planner it’s polite to hashtag your wedding photographer too.

[insert photographer’s hashtag here] – most wedding photographers will have an already established a personal hashtag that they use to promote their business.

The #Location

We won’t provide you with any hashtags for this section as they’ll be unique to your wedding.

However, it is worth spending some time looking at successful hashtags related to the state, city and venue you’re getting married in.

The #Party

theafterparty – (53.6k posts) Again this isn’t a hashtag exclusively for weddings but it will expose your content to a wider audience.

[ #partyon #allnightlong #itsmyparty]

weddingparty – (6.6 million posts) This is a great hashtag to use on all of your reception photos. This can cover everything from the meal, to the cutting of the cake, to the disco.

[ #reception #weddingdo #afterthewedding]

partygoals – (32.9k posts) Another hashtag with a wider reach. This will be perfect for all those cool dance shots that were taken on the night.

[ #dancethenightaway #party #weddingdance]

weddingreception – (2.3 million posts) Photos of all events after the wedding ceremony should be tagged with this hashtag. This is one of the most popular hashtags for post wedding events.

[ #weddingceremony #weddingtoasts #weddingmemories]

cuttingthecake – (28.4k posts) Capturing one of the most iconic moments in Western weddings, the moment of cutting the cake is a staple wedding photo to share. Lots of our favorite wedding photos have come from this moment.

[ #cakedesign #sliceofcake #weddingcaketime]

weddingcake – (7.6 million posts) Another element of good wedding practice is to hashtag your wedding cake, and tag your bakers in it too.

Again lots of wedding bakeries now get most of their business from the platform. Plus when someone has spent that long on a cake, it’s only right to show it off.

[ #weddingbakery #cakegoals #ourweddingcake]

Popular General Wedding Hashtags

Once you’ve decided on all your main hashtags, why consider adding on a few of these other popular hashtags:

#couplegoals (27.1 million posts)

#weddingday (37.4 million posts)

#bridetobe (17.8 million posts)

#bestdayofmylife (544k posts)

#bride (60.7 million posts)

#marriage (16 million posts)

#gaymarraige (737k posts)

#instawedding (9.5 million posts)