Okay, I am getting married, but as I read about everybody else’s planning process I’ve realized that I’m not doing a lot of what many brides-to-be seem to be doing. I know there is nothing wrong with being different, but I’m starting to wonder… am I missing out???
Here’s a list of my unbrideish things:
Asking the bridal party: Everyone did cutesy cards or something extra special to ask their bridesmaids. I did none of that. It was practically a ‘wanna be my bridesmaid? yes, well good’ end of story. My bridal party already think I’m nuts for doing all these DIY projects, I can’t imagine how they’d react if I gave them a pop up card or something like that. 
Engagement photo session: Before I started reading weddingbee… I didn’t even know people did this. I find it really neat especially if you are hiring the same photographer for your wedding because it gives you an idea on how they work. But nope, we didn’t do this. More money for something else…
Save-the-dates: I went ahead and made electronic versions of a STD but I really don’t think it was worth it for me. I won’t have guests coming from far (exception for my good friend from Toronto) so it wasn’t really necessary. Also I didn’t do it all the way (meaning I didn’t have everyone’s email address) so come think of it… there was really no point.
Engagement party: This is something very popular with Italian weddings… I mean it’s almost as big as the wedding itself, but I didn’t feel there was a need. So we didn’t have a party, a supper or a get together. They’re just gonna all meet at the wedding. Hope that goes well.
Registry: It’s very simple. We won’t have one. Mr. Flamingo and I have decided this and it’s one thing we will stick to. We’ve been together for 4.5 years and have been living together since for 4, so we have everything we need. (Exception a BBQ - which we will most probably get anyway). If anything, it would be nice to receive monetary gifts to pay for our future home.
So what un-brideish thing are you doing or should I say, not doing?
A girl after my own heart =)
I’m not wearing a white dress, no veil, no wedding party, no giving the bride away or bouquet/garter toss. And our cake will be from Ben&Jerry’s! We did decide to do a fairly normal (secular) ceremony since we thought a handfasting would weird our older relatives out too much.
Traditional stuff we are doing is mostly the rings I think, though they’re all custom made and designed by us.
Miss Flamingo, I’m 4 for 5 with your list. I didn’t do save-the-dates, an engagement photo session, and I actually didn’t even ASK my bridesmaids to be in my wedding. It was kind of like, “Oh, you’re getting married? We’ll start looking for dresses!” My BMs are my two best friends and we’ve talked ad nauseum about being in each other’s weddings. It felt more natural than me gluing my fingers together making a card for them (which would totally happen).
We also didn’t do an engagement party because A) our friends and family are spread throughout the western seaboard and B) for us, it just didn’t fit our personalities. We’re very low-key and don’t generally like parties, so it would feel forced to have a big soiree thrown for us.
Good for you! I kinda wish I didn’t have a bridal party…not that i don’t love them, just that picking colors and dresses has been the most pain staking process.
We are skipping some traditional wedding things too, just not our style.
…just be prepared to get a lot of stuff you dont really want as wedding gifts. People dont really like to give cash. I cant imagine handing a $50 bill to my friend as a wedding gift, and I’m Asian! (in most asian cultures, money is the standard gift)
Also, the engagment session gives you the opportunity to get to know your photographer. Most photogs include the E session for free, because they like to become comfortable with the bride and groom BEFORE the big day. Its not simply done just as an extra “wasteful” thing. You dont really want to be “feeling your photographer out” on your wedding day…and neither does he/she.
Peihan 17, I see you on Indie Bride all the time! Well, that’s just because I stalk the Wai-Ching forum. *…*
My most “un-bride-ish” trait is that I’m not into being a bride as most women usually are. I could care less about the cake and flowers, but I do enjoy crafting all the tiny details that people overlook anyways (it’s the best part!).
Also, I’m not wearing white and I actually like carnations. Sadly, that can be taken as not very bride-y and tacky.
I think your list is fantastic!
Here’s mine:
no bridal shower, no STDs, no E-pics, no B-pics, no ring boy, no favors, no guest book, no garter toss, no bouquet toss, no bridal party introductions at the reception, I didn’t want fancy transportation either, but DH did
Oh, we’re also not doing the bouquet toss or garter thing. I can’t think of anything more horrifying than 200 people watching while my fiance goes up my skirt and pulls a garter off with his teeth.
no engagement photo shoot here (although we might have a friend take a picture for the announcement in the local paper - as per FMIL’s request)
No engagement party here (Until the Bee I thought that was only for the wealthy)
I just sort of said: “You know your one of my girls right?” to my BMs. (Although I’m thinking about the card thing anyway because all but one lives far away.)
We are going back and forth on the registry. If we do register it may be at Home depot or something because we are buying a fixer upper this summer and could use the materials (plus they have the kitchenaide mixer I want too - this being my only major wish list item for a registry since I can’t justify spending that kind of dough when I can use a hand mixer.) Not a very bride like store is it? but we are both in our thirties with all the necessities and I have china from my family as well as silver I found at an antique store years ago.
Unfortunatly the Save-the-Dates are a neccesity because I would totally skip them if I could, especially since most of my guests have never even heard of them. Almost half of the guest list is from out of town and will need a save the date to get room at the Inn (very limited places to stay in our area!).
I hope you aren’t asking for money on your invites. I saw the most beautiful invite the other day and it asked for cash gifts. Printed directly on the direction card. Horrifying.
i’m the same way! only i did sign up for a registry because we need so much stuff, even though the fiance and i have been living together pretty much from the day we started dating.
i’m seriously considering giving out 40 oz bottles of olde english malt liquor as wedding favors. of course, i”ll wedding it up by wrapping them in paper bags and tying them with pretty blue ribbons and if i’m so inclined, write everyone’s name in pretty, girly cursive on the bags.
my bridesmaids think i’m crazy, but whatever. 
I feel the same way… It seems like there are a lot of things I’m not doing that other brides are:
- no engagement party (none of my other friends had one either)
- no Save the dates
- no engagement photo session
- no asking the bridesmaids, they all just assumed their roles
- no cake tasting/food catering tasting (its a small town, so I’ve been to weddings with the same vendors, no need to worry about taste)
- no day-of-coordinator
- I didn’t research any other vendors or venues (because of the small town thing, only so many places to get married, get flowers…)
Great post! We did away with numerous wedding-related extras as well.
My list includes: No bridal shower, No registry, No fancy transportation, No favors, No ring boy/ flower girl, No guestbook, No out-of-town bags, No seating arrangements, No menu cards/ escort cards/ table numbers, and so forth.
A friend threw us an engagement party, but it was very lowkey. They served White Castle and Popeyes and it was awesome. We’re so classy. haha
I’ve just taken the whole anti-bride stance of whatever was something me or my fiance don’t care about we let the “professional” handle. We’ve told our ceremony musician to just pick whatever music he wants.
And for really different we both love halloween so we’re going to wear costumes to the reception, and my matron of honor is going to re-wear her wedding dress so she can be the Bride of Frankenstein.
Wow. I had no idea there were so many unbrides hanging around! It’s great to know we aren’t alone. In my wedding there will be no STDs, no engagement parties, no bouquet toss, no coordinator. I caved on the shower thing but made my BMs swear that there would be no shower games.
Just a thought on the registery though, my FI and I are in the same boat (even matching in years). Mainly we registered because we worried about odd gifts. My mother convinced us by pointing out that several family members collect odd things and might be tempted to give us something from the collection.
No groom, no bridal party, no engagement photos, no engagement party, no shower, nobody is tossing anything, no being escorted down the aisle, and no veils. Ahh, that felt very liberating to say! NOOOOOOOO! Ahhh. Thank you.
No bridal party - just our two kids standing up there with us, if they are OK with it. Nobody’s giving me away (I’m 34, fer chrissakes), but I do want my son to walk down the aisle with me. No tossing. No engagement party or bridal shower. No STD’s. No veil. No train or bustle or big poofy skirt on the dress (tea length, probably). No tiara. No table numbers (I’m envisioning one long rectangular one, plus another smaller one for all the kids). No roses or calla lilies (I hate them both). No special transportation. No registry, unless we decide to do a honeymoon registry, which is a distinct possibility.
Great post- no one should feel compelled to do anything because it’s tradition. As for myself I’m going fairly traditional almost to the point of run-of-the-mill, but because I like just about everything “standard”. However, I know if it wasn’t me, I wouldn’t have a problem droping a single thing!
But what’s this about an Italian engagement party?! I want one! I’m marrying an Italian, and his family has never heard of one… I was super bummed for a bit, since party in Italian directly translates to loads of incredible food and a never-ending supply of drinks, but whatever. I’m over it!
No engagement party, no bridal party, no garter or bouquet toss, no table numbers or escort cards, no church, no candles. There were more NOs, but my sister and mom keep conspiring against me with FI. We are having a giant birthday cake, as we are getting married on my only niece’s first birthday.
Interesting post. I live pretty far from all of my bridesmaids and so I thought it might be best to call them rather than design an elaborate bridesmaid newsletter. No bridal shower for me and no bouquet/garter toss (mostly because I didn’t want to “single” out any of our friends!), and no engagement party. When it came to dress shopping, I bought the first dress I laid my eyes on and never went back.
We decided to do an engagement shoot because it was part of our wedding package and it was a good experience becoming comfortable with our photographer.
No registry (no gifts prefered), no flowergirl/ring boy, no aisle, no white/silver/pink shoes, no tux, no showers, no table numbers, may not even have tables (wedding is taking place in the coolest private residence on earth). We are having a real band, a friend officiant (not religiously affiliated), and the biggest party we’ve ever thrown.
you’re not alone miss flamingo! for my wedding last august, we decided to:
1) not have a bridal party. instead we asked my 4-year old nephew and 5 year-old cousin to serve as ring bearer and flower girl.
2) not snail mail a save the date card: we had a small intimate, destination wedding for close friends and family, so we i sent the save the date via evite! and since it worked out so well, i sent out another electronic save the date for my post-wedding chinese banquet. although i didn’t get to send out a fabulous and beautiful piece of stationery, we saved some money, time, trees and limited our carbon footprint
3) no wedding registry - we didn’t need any house stuff. we purchased most of what we needed when we bought the house a few months prior. we asked friends to donate to charities instead
4) no engagement session
5) no wedding cake/food tasting - we were having a destination wedding and had to trust our vendors and their referrals. we were not disappointed by the food or cake - they were delicious!
check out http://www.theunbride.net
Let’s see…No bridal party, no ring boy, no flower girl, no reception actually…just a nice dinner with our small guestlist–no more than 20-25. So along w/that, no DJ, no bouquet toss, garter blah blah blah…
It’s quite liberating not to have these things in my wedding. As long as I have my fiance, my photographer and my yummy cake, I’m a happy girl!
And I thought I was the only one!
1). We are not having a garter toss, or flower toss.
2). No bridal shower, unless my girls decide to throw me one. My FI have been together 11 years and have owned a house for 2 years. I think we have more than enough things!
3).No engagement party
4).No engagement pictures
5).No special toasting flutes
6) No cake serving set
Yay - makes me happy that there are so many other unbrides!!
No wedding party, children of any kind, wedding cake, engagement party, bridal shower, e-pics, videographer, favors, toss, etc. etc. Just a fun old party with our friends and family!!
You are an Unbride! I love it! http://www.theunbride.net
Good for you. Here, it’s no white wedding dress, no veil, no bouquet/garter tossing, no wedding party, and no one giving me away. Nothing and no one should dictate anything even remotely resembling “rules” for weddings, IMO. Create your own tradition, even if it’s only one-year young.
I am a complete bride. I bet you would love indiebride.com
Oh wow everyone!!!! Im not alone. This is so great. I am happy about my choices of not doing things…. but I cant help but wonder how it would be if I did do them.
I love Justine and theunbride.net. shes a sweetheart!
Now that everyone is listing things I have more to add
- no white dress
- no special toasting flute
- no cake serving sets
- as for the bridal shower and bachlorette… i dont know yet
Maybe I shouldn’t be posting on this, but I am very traditional and will most likely do everything “bride’ish”, except for the garter toss… I am way too modest for that.
It’s funny because I keep telling my friends and family that we’re not having a traditional wedding and the initial response is “Oh that’s great! I love uniqueness!”
When it comes down to it, I mention things like having an ipod mix of our music (not YMCA etc) and not having attendants and people reveal just how unsupportive of uniqueness they really are
Oh and about the registry - my sister got married 4 years ago and didnt do the registry thing either. So I feel my guests are prepared 
Nope, I wont write it on the invite. But god bless word of mouth. lol
I’m starting to think we might end up wanting to do engagement pics, but so far we haven’t.
I didn’t do any cutsey cards for my bridesmaids either. I think they might have barfed.
I’m so glad I’m not crazy!
-called my bridesmaids (only had 2)
-no e-pics (and our photographer was awesome at the wedding)
-no save-the-dates
-no engagement party (ok, my roommates busted out some wine the day he proposed… but that doesn’t count, right?)
-no bachelorette party
-no “colors” - I just picked out what looked nice.
-no tuxedos - rewearable black suits for all the guys!
-no ring bearer/flower girl
-no limo
-no garter toss
-no cake baker, florist, or videographer: all done by great friends.
- I wasn’t gonna have a bouquet toss, but I threw it to my best friend at the last minute.
-and I first tried on my dress in black! It was a bridesmaid’s dress that I then ordered in white.
i’m usually super traditional, but if there was something “bridish” that didn’t ring true to me, I didn’t do it. that includes:
- no bouquet/garter toss
- no fancy transportation for bridal party — we’re traveling a total of 3 blocks, so would be a giant waste of money, IMO
- bridesmaids all chose their own style of dress
- no flower girls/ring bearers/junior bridesmaids
- no b-pics
- no engagement party
- called my bridesmaids to ask them to be in the wedding, and haven’t done any kind of newsletter since then
- no introductions at the reception, except for fiance and i
- no bridal party dance, money dance or group participation dances
- no decorations at the church
- no special cake knife and server, or toasting flutes. i’m paying enough money to our reception site. certainly they can provide me with the proper dinnerware!
we did to e-pics — but not with our wedding photographer. we did it with a local photog when we were on vacation in Florida. In retrospect, this was unnecessary and a giant waste of money. but the pics are lovely.
Maybe I just don’t see these things as “traditional” … but rather as all kinds of options that some people choose and others don’t? My parents had none of the above for their wedding… and most of my friends won’t follow that list either. We never planned to have any sort of engagement party, but they were thrown for us by friends and family. And if we didn’t send out a formal STD, our wedding would have been quite lonely since half of the guests were 3000+ miles away.
And just to clarify the western “white dress” issue… wedding white includes creamy whites and ivory. For instance, no silk dress could ever be labeled as white, since it’s naturally an off-white color and never bleached. So, sadly, you’ll have to cross that one off your list of unbridal things
Mrs.Lemon… my dress is champagne. Not ivory not off white. But ok, I can cross it off the list.
Ok now, needing to distinguish between champagne, off-white and ivory - TOTAL “REAL BRIDE” BEHAIVOR! haha
Fine! Dont gang up on me now.
Well… then, I have a colored sash and colored shoes. Does that count???
No engagement party for me, no engagement photos, no save the dates, and I just called the girls and ask them. We’re also doing no favors,
But I still think I’m a bride, and I’m so excited!
[...] I’m NOT a Real Bride by Miss Flamingo [...]
No engagement party… our families will meet the day before the wedding most likely - YIKES!
I’m not having a WEDDING wedding - nope, I’m getting married on a cruise ship with only 18 guests, all immediate family of mine or my fiancé’s. Short & sweet ceremony with a quick sparkling wine toast at the end….
I’m not having a maid of honor, or any bridesmaids or ushers for that matter….
I’m not walking out of the ceremony to the usual Queen of Sheba or whatever it is. We’re walking out to …. shhhhh… it’s a surprise…
No save the date…
Invitation is coming as a message in a bottle…
No wedding photographer (only engagement shoot, maybe)…
No wedding cake…
No registry (like you, we think money would be nice, though, for a house)…
Oh… and no wedding dress or tux. a nice light-colored halter top sundress for me is what i envison and i see the boy in some light linen khaki colored pants and a white button down shirt…
Asking the bridal party
After April 12th, I will have been apart of 3 weddings…. once as a flower girl, once as a bridesmaid, and once as a maid of honor. I’ve NEVER been asked to be in a wedding in a special way (well I feel being asked to be in a wedding is special, regardless). I never heard of asking bridesmaids in a cutesy way and just asked them.
Engagement photo session
I thought this was important for us but we also didn’t spend a fortune. $150 total.
Save-the-dates
Save the Dates are 100% optional. I never heard of them until online communities. They weren’t well known (or maybe they didn’t exist) when my brother got married in 2004. It’s especially not necessary when you don’t have many out of town guests.
Engagement party
We had one but we refused to have it be at a hall or be fancy schmancy (why would we do that for the engagement party AND the wedding?). We had it at my Mom’s house, open house style, laid back, different family members made food, it was a lot of fun. And a lot of our guests had never been to an engagement party so it’s not abnormal to decide not to have one.
Registry
I understand your thinking but some people will still insist on getting a non-monetary gift. So be prepared for some “interesting” gifts.
The only non-typical bride stuff that we’ll be doing (or not doing) is a typical bouquet/garter toss. Instead we’re doing a money dance. We’re also not doing a bridal party special dance. We’re also doing our bridal party table differently. We’re doing one table on our reception hall’s stage with just my MOH, me, FH, and best man. In front of us below will be our other 2 bridesmaids & 2 groomsmen.
Oyi, I was incorrect…. I was thinking one thing but typing another. lol
The only non-typical bride stuff that we’ll be doing (or not doing) is a typical bouquet/garter toss. Instead we’re doing a money dance.
I’m sorry, we’re doing a ANNIVERSARY dance instead of a typical garter/bouquet toss. I don’t know why I put money dance, we’re not doing one of those at all. lol
The best thing about weddings is that everyone’s is different. Back in the day you were stuck in the box as they say. We get to do what (and what we don’t) want to.
- I’m not doing STDs
- No flower girl/boy (too many to choose from)
- NO bouquet toss / garter crap
- NO chicken dance (though my sis wants to get chicken feet and a hat to wear with her yellow BM dress)
- No MOH. I have two sisters, I couldn’t do that to them (I’m sure neither of them would mind - but I just don’t like making people feel left out). But my best friend is the UMOH [unofficial MOH)
- No engagement session - my UMOH is a fantastic photographer and she’ll do them this spring.
- I was very informal in asking the bridal party. We’re still finalizing it. Just asked my FSIL a couple months ago and FH hasn’t narrowed it down to the last one, yet.
- I’m thinking yellow or red shoes under my dress
- NO open bar *gasp*! it would be a VERY bad idea.
- No videographer
- No church decorations
I’m sure there are more.
My “unbridey” stuff is mostly reception.
No dancing, only charades and Wii.
No favors, instead a couple of prizes.
No bouquet/garter toss
I never had an engagement party or asked my bridesmaids in a cutesy way either. I am doing engagement photos but my sister is taking them. We have very few pictures of us together even though we dated for 4 years.
I think it would be really interesting if you did a follow up post on what kinds of gifts you received without a registry.
Good idea, but since I only got monetary gifts I don’t think theres much content.
Mrs. Flamingo, Montreal, Canada
Age and Occupation: 25, Graphic Designer
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 30, Nursing Student
Engagement Date: December 2004
Wedding Date: June 21, 2008
Venue: Imperia Hotel (modern chic hotel)
About Me: I am a passionate designer who loves anything pretty. I heart all paper products (eco-friendly of course). My passion revolves around anything considered glamour; vintage and modern. In my free time, I love reading Martha mags, designing jewelry and making a pit-stop at Starbucks for a chai latte. I'm also a chocoholic at heart and my family drools over my homemade truffles.
i’m not having a bridal shower. my bridesmaids are willing to throw me one (as is my mom) but i said no. IMO, no point in having my friends/family spend more money on me!