Traditions to cut

I had a friend officiate as well for my outdoor ceremony. I walked myself down the isle as my father is deceased and used a non-traditional song...one of his favorites. We didn't have a flower or garter toss either.

I didn't do the bouquet toss or the garter thing, we didn't do any of the usual dances, no assigned seating at dinner (a huge UO here, i know, but it worked for us), no "obey" language in our vows. i'd never heard of a unity ceremony till i joined WW so we didn't do that either. just a note about friendors too, we had a family friend do our flowers and while she did an amazing job in the end, it wasn't without conflict and we ended up spending more than anticipated rather than less. i don't really have any regrets since it ended up being a beautiful day and she helped us with a ton of extra stuff, but still, something to be aware of.

I am getting tea langth dress. I am having a maid of honor and 2 bride maids and 1 Jr bride. Two Flower girls. My future husband is only having best man. Silk flowers for boutique and Cupcakes intead of cake.

I am getting tea langth dress. I am having a maid of honor and 2 bride maids and 1 Jr bride. Two Flower girls. My future husband is only having best man. Silk flowers for boutique and Cupcakes intead of cake.

I am getting tea langth dress. I am having a maid of honor and 2 bride maids and 1 Jr bride. Two Flower girls. My future husband is only having best man. Silk flowers for boutique and Cupcakes intead of cake.

It might be simpler to tell the traditions that we are keeping.

-We have 3 members of the bridal party: MOH, BM and FG (though I wasn't planning on the FG, but FH let it slip to his 8 year old sister that she was being considered, so I got pressured on that one. Plus, FMIL was already picking out dresses for her as the FG without my consent anyhow)

-My father is going to walk me down the aisle. He's a huge part of my life and I want him to be by my side for this

-I'm in love with the Unity Candle idea, so we will have this as part of the ceremony.

-I'm wearing white (I went into the shop thinking about getting a light blue or red dress, blue being an older traditional color and red being traditional in China where my stepmother and that part of my family are from. I also spent a few years living there)

-Boys are wearing suits, vests and bow ties because that's what they wanted to do

No garter toss, no bouquet toss, no speeches needed or the extra "frills". A simple 2 tier with a cute topper and hors d'oeuvres will be served at the reception. We'll probably do a small toast as a married couple, but short, sweet and to the point is the main idea with our day and the venue helps us out a lot with that (we really don't have to lift a finger to do much of anything besides show up the day of). But our guestlist is under 25 including the BP.

No flower girl, ring bearer. No unity candle or sand ceremony - we are doing a love letter ceremony instead. Ceremony is outside with a LONG walkway - my son is walking me 1/2 way to my dad who will take me the rest of the way and they will both be giving me away, no seating of parents, I'm seating the spouses who are not a part of the bridal party with us at the head table so they can enjoy the evening with their spouses, otherwise everything else is pretty traditional.

The female part isn't problematic. The "she's a public speaker so of course she'll be good at that too" part is. It's way more difficult than most people think to write and perform a ceremony well, and since she has never done it before, you're basically on your own; content, style, and legalities. The fact that she knows you doesn't in any way qualify her to marry you.

No flower girl

No unity ceremony

No bouquet/garter toss

After our first dance, FH wants to transition into a more PG version of the dance from Little Miss Sunshine.

Tbh not thrilled about the last one, but he's so excited for it so whatever. It fits us

@Summer one of my opera friends did our ceremony and it was great! She too is a proven performer (not shy at all being the center of attention) so I had no doubts in her ability. We met a few weeks before to plan out the whole ceremony and reviewed it over email a couple times after. She came to our rehearsal and reviewed the plan with our DOC. It was terrific!

My only advice is make sure it's legal in your state and whatever online paperwork needs to be completed a few weeks in advance. https://theamm.org/

We had a 15 minute ceremony officiated by a friend who had done 2 other weddings before. He was amazing!! We were barefoot (on the beach) for our ceremony. We had no bridal party (best decision by far), no unity ceremony, no garter or bouquet toss, and no champagne toast. We didn’t have a signature drink or do a first look. It was a magical beautiful day and I would do all the same again. Do you and you can’t go wrong!

Like many others, we're skipping the tosses. I'm not having flowers (with the exception of corsages for the moms/grandma, because they were put out about no flowers) and instead carrying lanterns rather than a bouquet. I'm having 2 mohs. I really don't want to have toasts because they are always so awkward to me, but i'll leave it optional to the people who would be expected to do them.

We are keeping all of the dances (i'd rather not, but it was important to fh), my dad is walking me down the aisle, and we are getting married by a pastor - my uncle.

I don't necessarily dislike the traditions we aren't doing, they just weren't very "us", so we opted out.

No parent dances, no garter toss...

No overly trendy wedding crap that we're going to regret seeing in photos in 30 years.

Sorry Alicia, you can 'do you' (possibly the most misdirected wedding advice ever) and go horribly wrong.

@Summer - we had a friend officiate and he did great. It was his first wedding. We did practice a lot as we wanted it to go smoothly. Traditions we did not do:

Something old, new, borrowed, blue

no bouquet toss/garter toss

no processional, no music

my two sons were my "best men"

Simple, civil ceremony

No readings of any kind

Our vows were very old school - no promising to be each other's wings in the storm. Just to have and hold, for richer for poorer

No unity candle, no unity sand (we are getting married, is that not unity enough?)

No cheesy photos

No theme for the wedding, heck we did not even have a color!!!

Kransekakke for wedding cake

We did have three short toasts

No receiving line, we went to everyone and thanked them in person (42 people total)

I did wear white though!

His parents walked him down the aisle. My mom and brother walked me (my dad passed away almost 10 years before the wedding). We had no bridal party at all...his brother carried the rings. Aunts and Uncles did a reading. All family was involved in the wedding in some way. We did not do a garter or bouquet toss. Since it was destination, we didn't do a "leaving scene". We hung out in the hospitality room after the wedding with the guests.

-First look

-Mixed gender BP

- No kids in BP

- Groom walked down the aisle and even had his own special song (no sneaking in the side for this guy!)

-No escorts for either

- Non religious pro (female) officiant

- No unity ceremony

-No tosses

- No speeches

- We had pie and apple crisp instead of cake (does that count?)

Things we did do:

-BP grand entrance

-First dance ( I HATED it!)

- Father/daughter dance

I waited til I'd been with ex-husband for nearly 4 years before we wed. We eliminated the garter and bouquet toss. Instead of walking down the aisle to "Here comes the bride," they agreed to play U2's "End of the World " instead - because friends jokingly said it would be the end of the world when I married. Everything else was pretty traditional, except the cake. We had a cupcake arrangement instead.

I'm having my grandmother be my flower girl however there will be no flowers and nothing that resembles flowers (no bouquets at all), no garter or bouquet toss. This is not as unique but I don't think I would call it traditional either ... if all of the girls I ask to be bridesmaids agree to be in my wedding, one of them will not be wearing a dress, and I will also have a guy friend stand up on my side while my FSIL is standing up on my FH's side. We are going to put a bunch of different games at the tables for the cocktail hour and the reception so the guests have something to do while they are waiting for dinner or if they don't want to dance. In addition to the mother-son and father-daughter dances, I will be dancing with my FH's grandfather while my FH dances with my grandmother (we will be playing a song that is important to them) and we will have one song for everyone under 15 to come out and dance with the bride and groom. That's it so far but I'm sure we will be doing more as the planning progresses.

My ceremony is set up I a circle with two aisles facing each other. My FH and I will walk down the aisles toward each other, symbolizing or journey toward union throughout our relationship. Also, my dress is red.