Canadian weddings

Hey Emma,

We are not having a traditional rehearsal dinner with the venue. Instead we're doing a private rehearsal with our officiant just so we have a quick walk through of how it will go. This will happen 1 week from the date. What I have decided to do is instead of having a rehearsal dinner with the venue I will be having my bridal party plus our parents and siblings over a few nights before our wedding. We will go over everything any questions and explain to them their jobs for the day (ie. My MOH will be in charge of making sure my huge train on my dress for photos will look perfect.) I'm not a crazy bridezilla but for photos I want obviously everything to be perfect. My Bridesmaid will be in charge of my phone for the night. I don't want to have to carry around my phone so she will have my phone in her purse for the night kind of thing. Just small little duties like that, I like to plan out everything ahead of time so I just write things out that I need to remember all in a book for the day of.

As for Canadian/North American traditions.. Assuming in Ireland you do something new something blue etc., if not then that may be something cool to add in. A little list below of some of the things I can think of and I'm not sure if Ireland does any of them so I thought I'd just share!

-groom/bride gifts/notes

-gifts for the bridal party (we did proposal boxes for our bridal party - I design them so I was 100% doing a gift bag for them as well designed again by myself.)

-Parent gifts + Gift from the bride to the in-laws & same thing for the groom. We also are going to make a little memory box for our parents with little bits from our day included (ie. invite, menu, a framed photo of us (once printed), a flower from my bouquet dried out etc)

-bride/groom not seeing each other before the wedding.. We are breaking that tradition and we are doing a "first look". I was super against this before but after having time to think about it I have decided to do this as it will be super private only for him & I and our photographer & videographer will capture every second of his reaction!!!!

-We have asked my Uncle & family friend to MC the event. Their responsibility will be announcing us as mr. & mrs.., announcing our bridal party, speeches etc.

-Some people have their friend or family be their officiant. A friend of ours did that! He was funny and obviously knew the couple really well so it turned out to be great. To do this you would need an officiant license which can be a little pricy.

-Save the dates! People send this out as a pre-invitation. It just lets people know what the date of your wedding will be no other info unless you want to include some details.

-Jack & Jill / Bridal Shower / Stag - Personally I'll be doing a bridal shower my fiancé isn't sure about doing a stag as he planned on having a massive one but due to covid restrictions it isn't possible and he doesn't feel like it's worth it to have to pick and choose who to invite so he probably won't have one now.

-I know some people won't see their S/O the night before the wedding. More of a superstition.. We don't really care as we live together to begin with.

My husband is Irish, Canadian born and I'm Indian.

We had a fusion wedding that had part of my culture along with the Civil Canadian.

Traditionally, we have Welcome dinners rather than Rehearsal Dinner the day before. You can do whatever you feel to make part of your culture included part of the celebration. Its all about the special moments you will be creating in that time frame.

My husband is from Ireland and I am Canadian 🙂. I only have my wedding to go on, but I don't think there are any hard and fast rules for Canadian weddings, since so many Canadians are multicultural (my family is Italian) with different traditions. Instead of a formal rehearsal dinner, we had a ceremony rehearsal with the immediate wedding party in the morning and then had a Welcome-to-Canada BBQ for all of my husband's family in the afternoon. It was very relaxed and it gave our families a chance to get to know each other.

I dont know how much would be similar/same, and these aren't necessarily what we're doing, just common in north american weddings .. couple of things off the top would be:

-groom/bride gifts (we're not doing this.. but i've seen it at every other wedding)

-gifts for the bridal party

-bride/groom not seeing each other before the wedding - some people will do a first look before the ceremony

-i've also read that it's not necessarily custom elsewhere to have a friend emcee the wedding (announce the wedding party/bride and groom, when the dance floor is open, or the bar, introduce speeches, etc)

... thats just off the top of my head.. i think there may be an article on here somewhere about canadian wedding traditions

I moved to Canada from England so I’m also trying to adapt to the Canadian wedding traditions. From my experience of being a bridesmaid in a few Canadian weddings and planning my own wedding here in Canada, the main differences I’ve seen for bridesmaids are they are expected to pay for a lot of their stuff (dress, alterations, hair and makeup etc.) but that could be different for others. Another one is for the ceremony, bridesmaids are usually escorted down the aisle by the groomsmen before the bride instead of after. There’s also a few more pre wedding events that happen. From my understanding there is the engagement party (sometimes), the bridal shower, the bachelorette and bachelor parties, and the rehearsal dinner. Typically the bridesmaids host the bridal shower and bachelorette party. I think that’s most of the differences! But ultimately there are no rules and you can do whatever traditions you want to do

We're doing something super casual. After we do a quick run through of the ceremony, we are doing table apps at a resto and our immediate family and friends can join and grab drinks and food at their leisure. Your rehearsal dinner can be whatever you want it to be, or nothing at all.

We are not doing a rehearsal dinner. I think it really depends on the size of the wedding. We only have 4 people in the wedding, so a rehearsal is not necessary for us. If it’s a larger wedding than yes. I have heard of some people doing a brunch rehearsal as well which keeps the costs a bit lower, and be more casual. We are doing an international destination wedding so we are hosting a welcome drink for all guests. As for bridesmaids, well all I can think of is gifts for your bridal party. If you are requiring hair and makeup, then you should cover those costs for them. I have also found that the US version of WeddingWire has a lot more helpful information with a lot more discussions happening. I have discovered many things I just wouldn’t have thought of just by looking through the posts on there. I think just simply because there are more people in the states lol