Paula Kramer and Nikko Cagalanan knew they wanted a camp-themed wedding even before they were engaged. Ms. Kramer’s favorite place as a child was a summer camp outside Asheville, N.C., and she wanted to recreate that sense of nostalgia and ease. Mr. Cagalanan, who was drawn to a relaxed, multiday gathering with family and friends, said he was “all in.”
Mr. Cagalanan, 36, a James Beard-nominated chef, and Ms. Kramer, 33, live in Charleston, S.C., and own two restaurants there, including the Filipino spot Kultura. They hosted their September 2024 wedding at Camp Mondamin in Zirconia, N.C., a camp for boys.
During the three-day celebration, guests slept in bunk beds, wore “Camp Cagalanan” hats and shirts, and followed a classic camp schedule of swimming in the lake, kayaking, group hikes and cornhole. Meals — including burgers and fries, Filipino dishes and barbecue — were served in the cafeteria.
The couple described the event as “pure joy” and “the best time we’ve ever had.”
“Our whole careers are based on bringing people together, so it only made sense that the same sentiment carried into our own wedding,” Ms. Kramer said.
Mr. Cagalanan added, “I didn’t like the idea of a one-day, very rushed wedding.”
Summer-camp-style celebrations are increasingly appealing to couples looking to trade formal timelines for longer gatherings where guests can connect, unplug and play. Event planners, photographers and wedding-industry experts credit the interest to a growing desire among millennial and Gen Z couples for weddings that are immersive, multiday affairs.
Amanda Savory, an event planner in New York, now organizes around six camp-themed weddings a year, compared with one or two before the coronavirus pandemic. Camp-inspired celebrations foster togetherness, she said.
“They create the conditions for connection through proximity, shared meals and housing, and activities from yoga, a field day or simply lounging by the lake,” Ms. Savory said. “A traditional one-night wedding rarely allows that.”
Mary Dougherty, a photographer in Saranac Lake, N.Y., said she shot her first camp-themed wedding five years ago. Now they account for one of two of the roughly dozen weddings she shoots a year, she said.
Anna Wibbelman, the general manager of weddings at Minted, which offers wedding invitations and websites, said the appeal of camp-style nuptials was their relative simplicity. “At a time when couples are managing countless decisions, this format can feel especially approachable,” she said.
Ms. Wibbelman added that any equipment can usually “be ordered online or handled D.I.Y., lowering costs and keeping coordination more manageable than a vendor-heavy wedding.”
Costs will vary greatly, like for any wedding, depending on what couples decide to include, beyond the rental fees and how long they use the facilities. (At many Y.M.C.A. camps, prices typically start at around $1,500.)
“They’re not about saving money, they’re about creating an experience,” Ms. Savory said. “What camp means is entirely subjective to each couple, and bringing that vision to life often costs just as much, if not more than a traditional wedding.”
Data from Minted and other wedding sites supports a rise in camp-themed weddings. Mentions of pickleball — a popular summer-camp activity — have tripled over the past two years across Minted’s wedding stationery and wedding websites, while mentions of cornhole, another camp classic, have jumped 172 percent during the same period. Mentions of mainstay camp foods have also increased, with s’mores up 68 percent and cookouts up 74 percent.
And in a recent survey of 380 engaged or married couples by the wedding platform Joy, nearly 10 percent said they had hosted or were planning a camp-style celebration, an increase of around 10 percent over the past five years.
Vendors are noticing the shift, too. Chris Bajda, the founder of GroomsDay, a company that sells groomsmen gifts, said that during last summer’s wedding season, there was a noticeable uptick in couples who are buying camp-themed gear, including custom cooler bags and enamel mugs.
“One couple ordered nearly 200 personalized mugs,” Mr. Bajda said. “They were coffee cups for sunrise yoga and then served as water cups after swimming in the lake.”
While some couples choose working summer camps, others pick venues with a similar atmosphere.
Ms. Savory planned Tyler and Lucy Zorn’s three-day wedding in June 2025 at Cedar Lakes Estate in Port Jervis, N.Y. Founded as Camp Minisink in 1929, the 500-acre property became an upscale resort and venue in 2011. It offers high-end cottages with a rustic sensibility for overnight guests. The grounds include fields, hiking trails, a lake and sports courts.
Ms. Zorn, 29, a video investment manager at the media communications company OMD, and Mr. Zorn, 30, a project manager at the environmental technology company Carbon Lockdown, live in Manhattan’s West Village. They said they had wanted an outdoor celebration with a woodsy feel in a nod to their love for nature.
The weekend began with lawn games and a barbecue featuring a roasted pig, and included a field day. Guests wore T-shirts printed with “L+T,” and played tug of war, ran relay races and had a water-balloon fight.
Instead of welcome bags, there was a canteen-style area stocked with ice cream, sour candies, electrolyte powder and other treats. Ms. Zorn described the weekend as “warm, incredibly fun and filled with lots of laughter.”
“A traditional venue wouldn’t have given us the same sense of community,” she added.
Some couples take the concept even further, hosting weddings in remote settings where guests help set up and sleep in tents. Lauren Guido, 27, a doctoral candidate at the Colorado School of Mines, and Leland Spangler, 28, a geologist, who live in Golden, Colo., hosted a wedding weekend in July 2025 at Carner’s Cabin, a ski hut in Leadville, Colo., that is 11,700 feet above sea level.
Fifty guests hiked or shuttled up in a journey that changed the mood from “real life,” Ms. Guido said, into “something more communal.”
“With no cell service and very few amenities, the meadow quickly became a little village — people setting up tents, helping with food, playing yard games, tending fires,” she said.
After the ceremony, the evening turned lively when the group danced to reggae and pop music.
“The dancing escalated until people were doubled over midsong, laughing and catching their breath at the realization that dancing at 11,700 feet is real cardio,” Ms. Guido said. The night ended around a campfire, where Mr. Spangler played guitar as guests sang along and made s’mores.
“The camp framework stripped away a lot of the stiffness and performance that can come with weddings and replaced it with presence, humor and genuine connection,” Ms. Guido said.
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