It’s Not Just a Wedding…It’s YOUR Wedding!
When planning a wedding, couples tend to borrow ideas from others who’ve walked down that road before them. The pressure is usually to have a wedding as beautiful as other couples. While the wedding ceremony is common to all, unique ideas are generally missing from most weddings.
How you plan your wedding ceremony should reflect who you are as it’s a moment you can never bring back. Instead of doing what everyone else does in their wedding, why not incorporate special, unique, and memorable ideas? Let your guests remember your wedding day for something they’ve never seen before and never will again.
Here are some tips to personalize your wedding.
Ditch the Traditions
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Genevieve Nisly Photography -
Rising Star Photography
Have you ever attended a wedding and you can almost tell what’s coming up next? If you have, you know how some of the traditions make a wedding ceremony boring. From the long bridal lineups to the dancing styles during the procession, everything can be so monotonous.
If there’s anything about wedding ceremony traditions that doesn’t appeal to you, remove it from your to-do list. This being your wedding, you don’t have to appease everyone. Do what’s best for you and your spouse-to-be.
For example, it has always been a tradition for the bride to walk down the aisle to meet her partner. If you’d like to change this, you may walk hand in hand with your partner to the altar. Another idea is for the groom to be walked down the aisle by his parents, with the bride following with hers.
Once at the altar, the parents leave the both of you there. It’s the perfect demonstrations of “you shall leave your parents and cleave to each other.”
Change the Seating Arrangement
Your guests don’t have to be seated in church pews in rows. In fact, they don’t have to be seated at all. If your ceremony is just a few minutes long, you could ask them to stand. Depending on how many there are, they could stand in a circle around you to encircle you in love.
If yours is a garden wedding, have something different as seats. Some alternatives include park benches or cinema seats. A more creative idea is to arrange pillows and blankets and have them serve as seats.
Celebrate Before the Ceremony
Keep your guests busy before the ceremony begins. Mixing up the events of the day a little bit will pull out a unique approach to the wedding day. Welcome your guests with a drink or light snacks and let the party run for an hour before the ceremony. You can also use bourbon barrels as tables instead of the typical options.
Instead of having the ceremony and reception at different places, consider using the same venue. Let the reception begin as soon as the service is over. Instead of taking a break for the photo-shoot, intertwine the two sessions.
Two advantages of this are that you get to enjoy the food at the same time as the guests. Secondly, if you keep the two sessions short enough, you’ll have ample time for photos. This can either be at the venue or somewhere else.
You can also leave early enough to prepare for the honeymoon. You and your partner will have time to rest before leaving for the honeymoon destination, and your guests will have time to attend to other things.
Mix Up the Bridal Party
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Artistic Photography Inc -
too much awesomeness
Who said that you must have bridesmaids and groomsmen standing behind you for your wedding to be complete? You can cross off this requirement if it doesn’t appeal to you. Choosing between friends and forcing them to wear matching outfits can be a significant source of stress.
You can change this to suit you for the sake of your fulfillment. If you feel the party is a must-have for your wedding, break the rules. Let the male attendants stand on the bride’s side and the female ones on the groom’s. Or, let them choose their outfit. It doesn’t have to be matching, just something that says wedding.
While thinking of doing away with the bridal party, the same goes for flower girls and ring bearers. If you’re not very good with children or don’t have any that you’re close to, you don’t have to force this tradition. Children can be a handful and can act up on your big day, refusing to do what’s expected of them.
Bridal parties, bachelor and bachelorette parties, and engagement parties are other things to scrap off the list. It won’t be less of a wedding if they’re not your style. The time and money spent on these parties could go into something that you hold dear to your heart.
Take Away
A wedding is a very personal affair, and what works for one person may not work for another. There are no written rules for what you should or shouldn’t do at your wedding. If there’s a tradition you’d want to ditch, don’t let anyone talk you out of it.
On the other hand, if there’s anything you’d like to do that doesn’t usually happen, do it. The main thing is to have an event that makes you happy, is in your style, and reflects your personality.
