I’m a fan of tradition—family tradition, holiday tradition, wedding tradition, you name it. Following traditions makes me feel like I’m a part of something bigger than myself, like I’m a part of those generations upon generations of people who did it before me. However, sometimes traditions are outdated, meaningless, even downright offensive, and then it’s time to reevaluate them. There are some wedding traditions that fall into that category, which these Wizards will most definitely not be following.
1. Bride and groom not staying together the night before the wedding.
Uh, guys? We live together. We sleep in the same bed every night. It’s part of our everyday lives, and it would be downright silly for us to sleep separately just because it’s the night before our wedding. I don’t sleep very well without him there, and goodness knows I’m going to be having enough trouble falling asleep that night anyway. I don’t need anything else to complicate it. Plus, I’m so excited to share such an exciting moment with him—the night before our freakin’ wedding. Lying there trying to fall asleep, amazed at what we’re about to do, taking it all in, trying to wrap our brains around it. It’s crazy. It’s huge. We’re going to have a lot on our minds, and I don’t want to share that with anyone else but him.
2. Groom not seeing the bride until the aisle walk.
We are not going to wait until the aisle walk to reveal Bridal Miss Wizard to Mr. Wizard. We’re doing a first look instead. I originally didn’t really like the idea of a first look because I thought it would “ruin” the aisle walk, but after thinking about it, I just don’t want to share that huge moment of seeing each other for the first time with everyone else. Seeing each other for the first time as bride and groom is such an intimate, emotional, personal, big thing for me, and I’d rather it just be me and him. Plus, that way Mr. Wizard will actually get to take in my whole ensemble that I’ve worked so hard on, versus just getting a general impression of “Yup, she’s a bride—she’s wearing white and a veil” if he saw me for the first time walking down the aisle. And dammit, I feel pretty freakin’ beautiful in my wedding ensemble and I want him to appreciate every last detail.
3. Bouquet/garter toss.
This is a pretty common one to ix-nay these days, and we’re jumping on the bandwagon. I’ve never been keen to go up and catch the bouquet, and Mr. Wiz has never in his life gone to catch a garter. We don’t really have any single guests so I’m not sure who would go up to catch a bouquet or garter anyway. Plus, in case you hadn’t noticed from numbers 1 and 2, um, I’m kind of a private person. I don’t want Mr. Wizard all up in my business for everyone to see—that can happen later, just the two of us (TMI?).
4. Father/daughter and mother/son dance.
I’ll just level with you, here: neither Mr. Wizard nor I have particularly good relationships with our parents. They’re not terrible relationships by any means, but we both grew up as the types who never saw eye-to-eye with how our parents raised us. Now that we’re adults, we still don’t agree on our upbringings looking back, and our relationships with our parents are more…respectfully agreeing to disagree and regarding each other as adults, rather than “daddy’s girl”/”mama’s boy.” Dancing with them to sappy songs about parents and children growing up too fast just seemed out of character and made us both feel a little queasy, so we decided to cut it. My dad is fine with this as he hates to dance anyway, but I’m not sure how FMIL Wizard feels yet.
So that’s where we stand on the tradition front. What about you, hive? Do you find yourself cutting or changing certain traditions to better fit your personalities/beliefs?
I’m doing a dance with my dad, he is not doing one with his step mom. We are not doing garter/bouquet tosses. I do, however, want to stick to the tradition of me staying in another place the night before and the tradition of him not seeing me before the wedding. I love having the choice as to whether or not we want to follow certain things!
I love that it’s no longer TABOO to not to these things! That said…we will be following ALL of these traditions, haha.
1) We’ve lived together for 3 of the 5 years we’ve been together (4 of 6 by the time we marry, and seeing as we met in college and basicalllly lived together in dorm rooms for our ENTIRE relationship, lol), but I think that sleeping separately before the wedding just ups the excitement and makes it feel DIFFERENT and special 
My parents lived together pre-marriage as well, but they slept separately the weekend before the wedding and said it definitely ups the ante.
2) I get the privacy part of the first look. And I get that it makes it easier to take pictures and not miss cocktail hour. And as much as I try to tell myself that these are both good things I just CAN’T shake the feeling that it just straight up feels wrong to me! It’s like “noooo you’re not supposed to see me yet!” I don’t believe it’s bad luck or anything, it’s just one tradition that has always felt super wedding-y to me and I don’t think it would feel right to me if he saw me pre-aisle.
3. At least 80% of the people at the wedding are single (be they our 20-something friends or our parents middle-aged divorced friends) and aching to catch the bouquet. I’m expecting claws and teeth to come out, haha.
4. My entire life my father has always said “I don’t dance, the only 2 days you’ll ever see me dance are at your wedding and your sister’s wedding.” So I literally have been waiting my whole life to dance with my father at my wedding, so this is a must must must for me personally.
Things we won’t be doing: anything religious (although we will dance the hora, because it’s fun, and have a chuppah, because it’s beautiful, but nothing all…God-y), a receiving line, a formal rehearsal dinner, one big cake, any line dances, lol. And since his mother’s side is Turkish, there will be Turkish food during the cocktail hour and a bellydancer, which is certainly something I NEVER thought I’d have at my wedding growing up! And I also refuse to wear bright white. It’s just not flattering on such a pale person, plus…me…pure? Pshhh, lol.
I’m so glad you wrote this post! We’re not doing the bouquet/garter toss or the cake cutting, but we are doing a father/daughter, mother/son dance.
The things I’ve been up in the air about are staying together the night before the wedding (I love your thoughts on it, that’s totally why I want to stay together the night before), and the doing a “first look”. I’m so unsure. I want the first look, but I also want the emotion of him seeing me as I walk down the aisle.
We will be staying seperate places the night before just because our house is 2 hrs from where we are getting our makeup and hair done and my parents live 10 min from there. so just makes sense. We arent doing the bouquet/garter toss, instead we have a bouquet that we are going to give away to the longest married couple. we are doing a first look before the ceremony too..just means more to us then the first look in the aisle
We’re not doing the bouquet/garter toss either. Mr. T HATE the garter thing, and while I think the bouquet toss is cute, it seems strange to do one without the other. Maybe I’ll throw it spontaneously at the end of the night.
I come from a big, traditional Catholic family and every family member has been married in a church, not always Catholic but always a church. I’m just not religious at all, and either is my guy. A religious ceremony would feel so forced and fake to us. Grandma may not approve, but she doesn’t approve of most things and she’s just happy I finally found a man (she thinks I’m an old maid…I’m 24).
We may even have a close friend get ordained online and do the ceremony. Getting married is such a personal thing and I’m pretty private person, so I like the idea of having someone we know and that has seen our relationship from day 1.
We’re picking and choosing which traditions we want. Bouquet/garter toss? OUT! Parent dances? IN! We’re doing a first look, but not staying together the night before the wedding. I love that everyone is able to personalize their wedding to be the way they want!
I swear we are wedding twinsies! We didn’t follow any of these traditions either! I think it’s awesome to reevaluate traditions and not do things just because you’re “supposed to.” Do what feels right!
I’m so glad to read this. We aren’t doing any of those things either!
We own a house together. Sleeping apart the night before seems silly.
My father danced with me for my Sweet 16 but counted down from 15 from the first note, and I don’t wish to repeat that awkwardness.
We want nice photos and we want to enjoy the day, so we’re doing a first look.
I’m not sure about the bouquet toss, but I’m vehemently against the up-in-my-business thing with the garter.
Yay for non-traditional brides!
We picked and chose what we wanted to include as well. Some things just didn’t fit what we like individually or as a couple.
@P2TheDoodle: From what I’ve heard, doing a first look doesn’t negatively impact the emotions during the aisle walk at all. There’s a lot of posts on the boards about it, if you need reassurance! I’ve never heard of someone regretting their first look, but I have heard of people regretting *not* doing one. Food for thought!
@Miss Treasure: I’ve been to plenty of weddings where just the bouquet is tossed, but not the garter! I actually didn’t know the garter toss was as much of a tradition until I started reading Weddingbee. I think you can totally do the bouquet without the garter if you want to!
@Mrs. Mouse: Haha, yay twinsies!
We’re being, surprisingly, kinda traditional! We’re staying in separate locations the night before (I’m pretty sure I’m not going to be able to sleep well even if Mr. D was there, and honestly I sleep better without him kicking and flailing and tossing and turning), he is staunchly against the first look, he really wants to do the bouquet/garter thing and I don’t care enough to rally against it, and we’re doing the parent dances (at least, I am with my dad — Mr. D hasn’t talked to his mom about it yet).
The only thing I might want to cut out is the wedding party dance, but I’m on the fence on that one.
We are super traditional people, so we did everything, LOL. We modified the parents’ dance a bit though, I am NOT a daddy’s girl, but DH is a momma’s boy. We did a joint father/daughter & mother/son dance to ‘Sunrise Sunset’ from Fiddler on the Roof. Our bouquet and garter was *hilarious* and was a total blast (we did not make it raunchy).
Mrs. Wizard, Pittsburgh Age and Occupation: 22, Front-end Web Developer Fiance's Age and Occupation: 23, Software Programmer Engagement Date: June 8, 2011 Wedding Date: June 2012 Venue: Glades Pike Winery, Somerset, PA About Me: I’m a born-and-raised Pittsburgh girl marrying a born-and-raised Pittsburgh dude. I’m a stubborn Italian with a huge personality, and I love oldies music, baking, housewifery, and all things Harry Potter. He’s a quiet, level-headed guy who loves my cooking and laughs good-naturedly at my lack of verbal filter. He’s an intellectual who likes to learn, and can often be found going on "Wiki walks" and landing on the most hilariously weird articles imaginable. We truly are a case of "opposites attract," and we balance each other out perfectly. We keep each other sane and make each other laugh so hard we cry almost every day, and that’s all I could ever ask for. Together we’re planning a simple, elegant, summery June wedding, and we can’t wait to be Mr. and Mrs.!
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