The Oblivious Bride – Traditions: Old & New

2 Written by jenny on August 2, 2010 – 5:00 am

While the summer continues to fly by, Chris and I are starting to feel more and more pressure to get our wedding planned.  Maybe it’s because we see other couples who got engaged after us have much more accomplished; maybe it’s because we feel like we’ll be even more busy in the fall and winter and that we need to take advantage of these longer days; or maybe it’s just because it is now less than a year away from our wedding and we see that clock ticking….

While the first 3 months of wedding planning have been centered on big ideas like the venue, wedding colors, bridal party, and catering, we are now starting to focus on the details.  One of the areas of deep discussion and debate are the old wedding traditions we want to incorporate and the new traditions we’d like to begin.

Photo by ilkerender

First, a look at old traditions.  We value traditions as they are connections to the past.  For many couples, religious affiliations and cultural heritage play a large role in deciding what elements to include in a wedding.  The challenge for Chris and I is deciding which traditions we feel are accurate representations of our lives together.  Here are some of the more controversial ones we’ve had to discuss:

1.  Wedding registry

The tradition of registering for gifts is a way for friends and family to help young couples set up their new home together and to help smooth the path of their new life together.   On the other hand, the Chinese tradition is for guests to offer red envelopes with money symbolizing luck and wealth.  As Chris and I are already living together and have slowly accumulated household items, we have decided to do a little of both.  We are registering for traditional gifts while also setting up a honeymoon registry.  The idea of a honeymoon registry is to let our guests sponsor portions of our honeymoon.  That way, we can concentrate on saving more money for the wedding (and not both the wedding and the honeymoon).

2. First dance

The first dance is often the first time friends and family get to see the couple as a married pair.  It is in one sense the public debut of the couple.  Chris and I have been together for 3.5 years so we feel as if most people already know us as a couple and we don’t need to show it off.  On the other hand, we actually both love to dance and think it’d be fun to learn a little routine for our guests and this is one we’ve decided to keep.

3. Bouquet & garter belt toss

The bouquet and garter belt tosses are both very old traditions that have evolved over the years.  In its earliest days, wedding guests believed that owning a piece of the brides wedding dress or bridal bouquet would bring them good luck.  (There’s also a symbolic reference of the garter to the bride’s virginity – but I’ll skim over that one)  In more recent times, this tradition has become more painful as single guys and gals are often dragged unwittingly to the center of a room only to run away from the bouquet/garter as nobody wanted to catch it.  While it can be fun and silly, to avoid the embarrassment of our fabulously single friends, we’ll be passing on this one.

4. Throwing rice

The throwing of rice is an ancient tradition related to fertility.  However, as most people know, raw rice is bad for birds and many venues forbid it.  That is why many people now use bubbles or birdseed instead.  This tradition usually takes place while a couple exits the wedding and heads off to their honeymoon.  In our case, after the wedding reception, we are hoping everyone heads back to our hotel for a little after-party.  And we aren’t really heading straight for our honeymoon after the wedding (it’ll be a little while later).  The grand exit doesn’t really work with our schedule so we are skipping it altogether.

What old traditions are you keeping/skipping???

Next week: New Traditions to Begin