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Wedding Planning, Destination Weddings, & Bridal Ideas

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Wedding MAINia / Archive by category 'Traditions'

Traditional Wedding Ceremony With A Modern Mindset

When I had conceived of my wedding in the past, my plans had always been pretty simple. I wanted a big party and a small, simple wedding ceremony. I am never one to stand on ceremony. I figured that, if my bride-to-be agreed, a civil marriage ceremony would suffice. Needless to say, we had very different ideas about what constitutes appropriate wedding ceremonies. As much as I wanted to simplify everything down to the bare minimum, she wanted to complicate things.

The funny thing is that, in all the other aspects of our wedding, we had agreed on things. We have had no problems picking out a wedding chapel, a wedding reception location or even thank you cards for the gifts that we were going to receive. We are both artists, you see and it helps that we have the same aesthetic. It makes picking out bridal gowns, wedding centerpieces and the like much easier. We didn’t even need to hire a wedding planner – we knew what we wanted things to look like. Nonetheless, when it came down to the actual wedding ceremony, we had no common ground. Our ideas were as different as night and day.

For my fiancé, the traditional wedding ring ceremony was very important. She was in this very difficult position of having to balance the needs of her family with her own needs. You see, her folks were very traditional Catholics. The power of parental denial enabled them to pretend that she was still a practicing member of the faith, but we knew that they would become very upset if we didn’t have a ceremony that was at least nominally Catholic. Nonetheless, she wanted us to write our wedding vows. In short, we had to balance two very different things. A traditional wedding ceremony and a modern mindset where we were able to make our own promises. It wasn’t easy.

In the end, we compromised on the wedding ceremony. I didn’t like the public nature of wedding ceremonies, although I had no problem with the promise of commitment. We decided that we would speak the standard vows in the wedding chapel and say our own special wedding vows in private. That way it could be a more sincere, intimate moment. I would say that neither of us were quite happy with it, but no one was so annoyed with the results that it would ruin the day. All in all, it was a pretty good compromise.

You Don’t Have To Follow The Traditional Wedding Ceremony

Though some of the traditional wedding ceremonies are still being used in many weddings, there are new customs and traditions that are being invented to suit the new way people are relating and even meeting. The world has changed very much since weddings became what they are and this means the those ceremonies have to change with the times.  There are some who stick to the traditional wedding in every way, many are making adjustments, whether they are large or small, to fit what they think a marriage should be.

One common change to the wedding ceremony is to change the vows. When I married, our minister gave us a selection of vows from which to choose and also told us that we were welcome to read our own if we wished. Since we both thought we would not like to read ours, even though it would be neat to write them, we decided to go with some traditional vows. We did made some modifications. Our first modification to the vows was that the word ‘obey’ would not be included. The thought of obeying each other was funny to each of us.

Some people are altering their wedding ceremony to include any children that may be involved. Some have their children in the wedding as flower girls, bridesmaids, ushers or groomsmen. Others turn their wedding ceremony into a family union ceremony. This is always a brilliant idea, as the children feel that they are being joined in the new family and they feel important and loved. Though not everyone chooses to do this for various reasons, it is becoming more popular.

The basics of any wedding ceremony remain the same. Most couples make vows and exchange rings with each other. Other than that, what a couple wants to do is up to them. Some faiths will not allow such changes, but many will. The ceremony should reflect the life of the couple and should be something they will cherish forever. The wedding ceremony should not be built to please the guests, but rather to please the couple. It is always a nice touch to keep the guests comfort in mind while planning. They will love you for it. Though people are always honored to be invited to a wedding, some brides and grooms don’t think about them while planning.  They sometimes end up having a very miserable time due to long length of ceremony or time between ceremony and reception.