What traditions are you axing?

Like everything lmao. Only one helping me get ready is MOH. Then my stepdad and step mom are walking me down and my gramie and mom will walk down first. My stepmom and stepdad,gramie,and mom will each get their own first look moments. we are having no a booze,dancing,or sit down dinner. we are having build your own tacos lunch lol. no flowers as my MOH will walk down with my service dog. My little brothers are doing the ceremony (we hired someone for the legal parts), cupcakes instead of cake, no rings, no flower girl or ring barer, no assigned seats, no vows, basically its a family get together with a ceremony that will take 15 minutes lol. But with cute dogs.

We are axing the bouquet and garter toss

We axed the following traditions:

First look

Bouquets and flowers

Garter toss

Parent speeches

I thought I'd would walk myself down the aisle but my mom asked me to ask my stepfather, which is fine but I told her I would not have him walk down if she did not as well. My mom is the only constant person. We will do first dance but that's it no father/daughter or mother/son. We will do a first look since I want to have a horse and carriage ride for first look and natural light in February. We are not getting married in a church. I am not doing bouquet or garter toss, since most guests are couples. I won't single out the single people. We will maybe have 3 speeches no more than 3 minutes each.

Cutting out:

- sleeping apart. I still need snuggles!

- dad walking me down the isle. He's not involved in my life so it will be my mom instead

- gendered wedding parties. one of my best friends is male and the other is genderqueer-masc. and they'll be up in my bride squad

- garter and bouquet toss. I think enough people have said how gross it is that i don't need to reiterate it...

- parent dances, unless FH's mom wants one with him. Then we would do that. Heck, my mom would probably do a mother-daughter dance!

- first dance; sort of. My two best friends who happen to be professional singers are going to sing a song for us (I see the light from Disney's Tangled) so it will be more of a performance for them that we dance to than all about looking at us. Their voices are so beautiful I'm pretty sure people will be more interested in listening to them than watching us!

Sleeping apart
Dad walking me down
Bouquet/garter tossSpeechesAnd super traditional parts of the ceremony that are optional

I'm keeping the first look for the ceremony (I like the drama to it lol) but we arent doing cake cutting, bouquet/garter toss, no one is walking me down the aisle, I don't think we'll do any dancing except with each other, and I'm not sure about speaches, it just seems like a lot. I'm having our DJ MC, rehearsal dinner I gave over to my future MIL to deal with and I am inviting who I like and not people who I don't like, including family members.

My kids are walking me down the isle. (Both pf my parents are passed)
We won't be doing the garder and bouquets toss.
I am not too keen on the cake cutting either but his parents are fairly traditional so we will probably keep that

From all you mentioned...I kept this 2

Cake cutting

- Bouquet/garter tosses

The night before we will be staying together, the morning of we will be getting ready in separate rooms. My fiancé wants to see me the first time as I am walking towards him down the aisle. We are not having a huge bridal party, just a BM and MOH and our two boys are Jr. best men. I would like my father to walk beside me down the aisle. My fiancé and I will only be doing a quick thank you speech. If our parents would like to say something to us or about us it will be at the rehearsal dinner, as it will be small and intimate. There will be a cake cutting but will not be announced to everyone. No garter/bouquet toss. We are not doing a honeymoon or mini moon, it’s not something we care for or find important. We travel frequently either staying close to home or going far that its not necessary after the wedding.

We stayed together the night before the wedding, had breakfast together. He even dropped us off for hair and makeup. My husband didn't have his mom at the wedding so we didn't do a mother/son, father/daughter dance or bridal party dance. The only dance was our first dance as husband and wife.

View quoted message How did I forget the garter toss! Totally skipping!

We are skipping:


-dad walking me down the aisle. And the whole aisle. -not seeing each other on the day of. I still want the first look moment though. -the guests not seeing the bride until the ceremony. We will greet our guests and mingle before the wedding. Hopefully this gives us more time with our guests!
I'm not sure if we are going to have a first dance or parent dances. I think my parents would like this, but my fiance doesn't love the spotlight.
I also think I'm going to cave and show him my dress before the wedding!

Not doing:

- Dad walking me down the aisle - I'm not a property to be given away to my husband. We're walking down together.

- Night apart before the wedding - we're staying in a hotel and not paying for two separate hotel rooms lol.

- Getting married in a church - the restaurant for our venue has a beautiful courtyard so we're doing the ceremony there.

- Bouquet/garter toss - we're in our 30s and most of our friends are coupled up or happily single, it seems rude to single out the few single people and be like "you MUST want to be married otherwise your life isn't complete RIGHT??" Also the tradition of the garter toss is pretty misogynistic and gross if you read up on it.

- First dance - not really because of a principled opposition to it, more that both of us are not great dancers and don't like being in the centre of attention so the thought of everyone staring at us for 3-5 minutes while we shuffle awkwardly around the dance floor sounds awful lol.

- First dance with parents - always seemed weird and awkward to me personally.

We are getting ready in separate locations just because the logistics of it worked out easier (his brother's apartment is right next to our venue so he'll just go over there to get ready) and first look because I feel like I'd rather have him first see me in private than in front of a bunch of people.

I'm reading the Feminist Bride now which goes into a lot about most wedding traditions have a patriarchal and sexist origin to them. She doesn't tell you not to do them, but just don't ever feel like you HAVE to do something because of "tradition". So we're keeping some of the ones we like and doing away with the ones we have no use for!

We are having a first look and not doing the first look down the aisle, we are not having cake at all or doing any kind of cake cutting, probably skipping the bouquet and garter toss. Not having a receiving line. I am sure we will think of more along the way as people ask us. So far the cake has seemed to really push people's buttons. Hopefully when they get their extra delicious desserts it will be ok ha ha.

For our wedding we kind of did a play on a lot of traditions:

- We spent the night apart simply because it was easier for vendors to come and do hair/makeup, (so all the girls stayed at my parents)

- We did not do the whole "only see each other as I'm coming down the aisle" thing because we are both private people so we opted for the first look in private

- I wanted both of my parents to walk me down the aisle to also remove the "giving away" rhetoric, and also both of my parents played a huge part in my life so I wanted to show that!

- Absolutely no bouqet/garter tosses, I always thought they were trashy

- All our speeches were under 2 minutes and had we asked dads/Man of Honour/Best Man to speak generally instead of having weird inside-joke-esque stories where 90% of the guests would not care about

- Cake cutting was VERY casual and we only kept it because we had a cake buffet (instead of plated desserts), and we just wanted to cut the biggest cake because it was different.

- We did dances with parents because both our families (and us included) think it's very touching. I wanted to dance with my mum too but I wanted the reception to be concise.

We are cutting the samethings you guys are! im just so sick of same cookie cutter weddings, some traditions dont need to be followed!

We nixed just about every tradition.
Ours was an elopement with immediate family so we got rid of:
a formal engagementpre-wedding partiesparents walking me down the aislebouquet or garter toss (I have big issues with the garter toss)we didn't have a cake so there was no cake cuttingMy husband helped me get into my dress and we arrived at the ceremony together.We didn't have any dancing at a reception, just dinner at a restaurant afterwards.
It was perfect for us.

Like...most? lol

We both walked down the aisle with our parents, had a mixed bridal party, didn't do the garter toss, bouquet toss, cake cutting (didn't even have a cake, we had doughnuts), didn't dance with our parents, stayed together the night before, no guest book, had a friend marry us, didn't have something old/something new.

I like that lots of people are making their weddings their own now.

We have a few traditional and a few non traditional aspects.
1. We will be sleeping apart; this is mostly just due to logistics lol and the amount of people that need to stay over the night before lol
2. Not doing a cake or cake cutting3. Not doing a guest book4. Not doing a garter or bouquet toss5. Only doing maid of honour and best man, no other wedding party 6. Both parents will participate in walking me down the isle (and possibly my brother) (this sounds busy lol but it’s a SUPER long pathway and I think it’ll work lol) 7. No favours 8. Requesting that people take a ton of pictures!! Especially of the party! 9. Non religious ceremony (outdoor venue) 10. Not doing a first look11. Not doing a send off
Either way. Whatever actually works for the couple is what’s best! We’re both a mixture of old school and new school and like what we have planned so far ☺️☺️

We had some traditional elements, mostly because my dad was really looking forward to walking me down the aisle, and we are close with our parents so they had speeches/dances.

Some things we axed/made non-traditional:

- Didn't get married in a church/have a religious wedding. Both our families have varying religious involvement but most have been married in a church or had a religious ceremony.

- DH had a best woman instead of a best man. He's closer to her and she agreed to wear a suit

- Didn't do bouquet/garter toss. Just don't like this one.

- Cake cutting - this was actually an oversight the night-of. Too much champagne to remember to cut the cake

We spent the night apart, because it worked logistically. Hair and Makeup started at 8am at the hotel so it made more sense to stay there the night before (we had the suite booked for that night anyways). We also got ready separately, again because it worked out logistically. We had enough time between ceremony and reception to do all our photos and we did groom + groomsmen and bride + bridal party before the ceremony.

It'll be pretty traditional overall I think, it's just the details that aren't typical traditions.

We're not doing:

- Sleeping apart night before

- Bouquet and garter toss. The whole thing about singling out the single or unmarried people never sat well with me. Instead we were thinking of having an anniversary dance for couples and our emcee will eliminate couples based on how long they've been together, and the longest married couple will be presented with a small gift. Pretty sure it'll be my grandparents since they've been married 60 years lol. Or I'll present the bouquet to my best friend's fiancé since they're getting married 3 months after ours.

- We're doing cake cutting, but we're not going to draw attention to it and have everyone stare at us. It'll just be us deciding when we want to do it and whoever happens to be looking will see lol

- No bridal party. We're having 60 guests and just keeping it intimate, and we want everyone to enjoy themselves as opposed to feeling like they have duties throughout the night.

View quoted message

Awesome! Some of those I didn't even think of, I'll have to add them to my first post!

For the most part we tried to keep the wedding traditions in place - but we did axe:

- Sleeping apart before the wedding

- Seeing each other (we did a first look as well)

- Cake cutting

Think we kept the rest (giving away the bride, father and mother walked me down the aisle, did the garter toss and boquet toss, first dance, father & daughter dance, mother & son dance... I think that covers them?)