Something old, something new

Indian weddings have many traditions and times now have come that the cost arise for them to add on easily every couple getting married. It can take a week for them to take place and prayers included. These traditions follow for brides and grooms as some parents don't believe its for gay couples to follow with no grooms or no brides.

Our wedding being fusion was a simple, yet short and sweet. We did have a Welcome Dinner a.k.a. Rehearsal dinner the night before the wedding. The traditions of Henna and Sangeet (Reunion of families and friends before the day) was skipped as well as the prayers. We did get to enjoy a Buck and Buck though 2 months before the wedding over a bachelor party. I didn't feel the whole time of celebrations being taken into full effect as my cousins and eldest brother got to enjoy.

I'm sure it will too

My fiance and I are going with wedding traditions. Garter toss and bouquet toss as well.

Something New: My dress. My dress was also a gift from my parents!

Something Borrowed: Haven't figured that one out yet.

Something Old: My Baba's Diamond Bracelet and Diamond Necklace that she had given to me before she had pasted away a few years ago

Something Blue: My garter

I wanted both her parents to walk her down the aisle instead of just her dad because a) both her parents are equally as important to her upbringing and b) it feels less creepy (the connotations of a dad giving her away to another dude). But her mom is so shy that she'll probably chicken out at the last minute (she ran into the bathroom during the parents speech at my fiancee's brother's wedding and stayed there for the whole speech, leaving my future father-in-law hanging at the podium).

A lot of the traditions we're adhering to won't be familiar to too many people here because they're very specific to the Chinese culture. We have to wear red (lucky colour), which we'll do during the family only pre-wedding festivities during the day of (she has a red dress, I'm putting red into my accessories). The bed we'll sleep on the night of our marriage will be decked out in red and gold. She'll also wear a ton of yellow gold on her, some of which looks so tacky to outsiders (one item is a golden pig necklace to symbolize lots of babies in our future).

There are also a few rituals we go through, like a hair combing ritual the night before for the bride (symbolizes her "entering the next stage of life"), a tea ceremony with parents on the day of being the wedding ceremony (symbolizing the union of two families), and the family eating sweet mochi balls (symbolizes perfect happiness - cuz they're round and sweet).

Then there's me going to pick up the bride on the day of to take her to the wedding but her bridesmaids and her family will try to prevent me from reaching her through a series of challenges and obstacles (so I can prove I'm worthy). It usually consists of games and little challenges like eating bitter melon (am I willing to go through life's lows for her) or getting a part of our legs waxed (to better understand what my bride goes through).

Like western traditions, a lot of it is based on superstition (mainly to ensure we'll be happy, prosperous, and be able to make a ton of babies). We're happy to do it for the cultural reasons but our parents definitely insisted on certain things for superstitious reasons. Like, if we got married on April 14, 2024, our parents will actually lose their minds (four sounds like death in Chinese, 14 sounds like "definitely dying" and 24 sounds like "easy to die").

Oh boy haha if it were up to me we would have eloped in the most low key ceremony ever with our photographer as one witness and a close friend as the other. Nothing fancy at all

But my husband is much more traditional that me and he really wanted a wedding. We agreed to forego the wedding party, bouquet/florals, bouquet/garter toss, classic bachelor/bachelorette parties, and a few other things. We also planned to (and did) walk down the aisle together instead of anyone "giving us away". Something else I'm so happy we did that isn't traditional was get ready together the morning of our wedding. We each got dressed separately and still did a first look with our photographer but I liked that we got to spend the entire day together.

Ultimately I'm glad I got my wedding dress, although it's not super traditional, and that we made the day a bit more special than I would have initially liked. But one silver lining of the pandemic was that we had a very very small ceremony with just my husband's immediate family and my family watched over zoom. I don't think it would have felt as special or intimate if we had 100 guests there. I'm still looking forward to our reception one day with speeches and everything.

In general, I feel like the wedding industry has gotten a bit out of control and a lot of people do things and spend a ton of money just for the sake of tradition. I think all couples should think about what's really important to them and toss out any traditional elements they don't like and really play up the ones they do like or maybe even bring in new traditions. A wedding should be a reflection of the couple getting married, not something an editor of a wedding magazine/website decided was best.