Making Scents: Wedding Fragrances

Before choosing your big-day perfume, heed these tips from local fragrance designer Neil Morris.

perfume

Consider Going Custom

Scents are indelibly tied to memory, emotion, and romance—so don’t spritz an everyday eau de toilette before your wedding. Morris, a 30-year fragrance vet, recommends creating a custom scent that will always remind you of your special day. First, study the season and venue. For a summer wedding, choose a fragrance with the floral notes of freesia, gardenia, lavender, or jasmine; for autumn nuptials, set the mood with amber, cinnamon, vanilla, or cedar. Is your wedding in the mountains or on a Cape Cod beach? Determine which aromas (like ocean musk, oak, or white ginger) relate best to the time and place of your ceremony. And keep your fiancé in mind: If he proposed over dessert, choose something with hints of chocolate.

Know How to Test

 With enough searching, it’s also possible to find the perfect store-bought fragrance. Morris recommends testing two scents at a time—but don’t trust what you sniff on paper. Body chemistry affects the smell of a perfume, he says. “You won’t know how it smells until you actually put it on.” Spray one perfume on each arm and wait at least 10 minutes (or better yet, a few hours) for the fragrance to settle.

Give Him a Whiff

Be sure to test out your choice around your future husband well before the big event, so it’s not an unfamiliar scent on your wedding night.