Weddingbee Blog

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Because I’m a giant dork and because I LOVE the dictionary, I give you M Webs’ definition of tradition in its entirety:

Main Entry: tra·di·tion

Pronunciation: ’trə- di-shən’

Function: noun

Etymology: Middle English tradicioun, from Middle French & Latin; Middle French tradicion, from Latin tradition-, traditio action of handing over, tradition — more at >treason

Date: 14th century

1 a : an inherited, established, or customary pattern of thought, action, or behavior (as a religious practice or a social custom) b : a belief or story or a body of beliefs or stories relating to the past that are commonly accepted as historical though not verifiable
2 : the handing down of information, beliefs, and customs by word of mouth or by example from one generation to another without written instruction
3 : cultural continuity in social attitudes, customs, and institutions
4 : characteristic manner, method, or style <in the best liberal tradition>

— tra·di·tion·al ’- ˈ dish-nəl, - ˈ di-shə-n ^ə l’ adjective

— tra·di·tion·al·ly adverb

— tra·di·tion·less ’- ˈ di-shən-ləs’ adjective

Got that? Traditions are weighty things, people. The definition above can pretty much be cited as the reason people get married, the reason we wanna get married, and the reason peeps DON’T want us to get married. Complicated, no?

It also reaffirms for me how important it is for us to get married, legal or not. It’s time to introduce a new norm and reclaim “traditional marriage”. It makes me sick that it’s been hijacked and degraded by this whole “marriage is between a man and a woman” bullshit. Traditional marriage in that sense of the word? No thanks. Now if you’re talking about love, honor, & commitment—I’m totally on board.

So it seems only appropriate that I give you our, ahem, tried and true traditions first. Here goes.

OLD SCHOOL TRADITIONS:

I want my dad to walk me down the aisle. I love this tradition despite its archaic passing off your daughter like chattel origins. I love my dad tons and the last few years have been really rough on him. He’s basically been forced into an early retirement due to a lot of scary health problems that they’re still trying to get to the bottom of. I think that sometimes it takes something like this for us to grasp our parents’ mortality and I have to admit it scares the hell out of me! I’m hoping my dad can get healthy (er) this year and that our wedding is a little something for him to look forward too. He’s been a wonderful father and I want him to have the HONOR of walking me down the aisle because I think it will make him happy. And depending how things shape up with Fiancee Stripes’ family, he may have to walk us both down the aisle. Double Happiness.

I want to wear a white dress. I know girls dream of the fluffy white princess dress, but not this girl. At some point in my angsty teen phase I told my mom that IF I ever even got married I’d have a ruby engagement ring and a red dress. Even when we started planning our wedding I still thought I might have a colored dress, although I long abandoned the ruby/red dress idea. Anyway, in my progression to full blown princess dress, I’m still on the short white dress end of the spectrum, but with a healthy leaning towards it-could-be-longer-if-it-was-vintage-couture.

We wanna cut the cake. And the rug. But that’s later. Anyway, this one is super important to Fiancee Stripes b/c “it’s just what you do at every wedding.” And even though she’s promised not to smash cake in my face, I still find this one a little suspect. I do agree that it happens at every wedding though, and I’m happy to give our guests a little of that continuity we were talking about in the above definitions. None of that “We went to a GAY wedding and (lowers voice) they didn’t even CUT the cake.” Nope. Not at our shindig. We deliver.

Okay on to cutting the rug, aka The First Dance. Yes, we (Fiancee Stripes) want everyone to stare at us as we awkwardly sway to a song of her choice. Yup—music is not my domain, peeps. This one makes me the most uncomfortable—I don’t like people staring at me if I can’t blabber. I’m much better at blabber than I am at awkward swaying. That being said, there is a redemptive factor to this one and that’s busting out with an amazing choreographed number mid-sway. That, I could get behind. So if you’re one of our darling wedding guests, forget you read this and damn it, act surprised should it happen!

In a perfect world of butterflies, unicorns and rainbows we would want a father/daughter dance. We don’t live in a perfect world though, and as Fiancee Stripes’ family isn’t supportive of our relationship/wedding we’re not really sure that they’ll be available for dancing. Or at our wedding at all, for that matter. Here’s where are all those above definitions of tradition painfully collide and the only one who gets hurt is my beautiful fiancee. And it sucks. I’m not sure what to do about it or how exactly to deal with this beyond obviously NOT having a father/daughter dance…

Not to end on a sad note, but do any of you have advice about how to deal with unsupportive family members?

Up next: NEW SCHOOL TRADITIONS.