DO YOU, BUT BE BOLD
A CASE FOR NON-TRADITIONAL WEDDINGS
At a certain point in your life, you reach an age where you realise you have free will, and one day, at the age of 31, you’ll be sitting on your couch and the thought hits you - you’re an adult. You can have cake for dinner. And there’s no one there to stop you. It’s a frightening, yet exhilarating feeling, as you scamper down to Woolies for the cheapest chocolate mud cake you can find.
That’s how I view wedding traditions.
You may or may not know this, but there’s a reason you have bridesmaids and it’s not because you want to include your closest friends on one of the biggest days of your life. It’s because, long ago, bridesmaids were used as a decoys, to confuse evil spirits away from the bride. Flowers? They were handy in masking the medieval musk of the betrothed during a time when bathing was seen as a novelty. Ever heard of the vena amoris? It’s latin for vein of love and it was believed that there was a vein in the left ring finger with a direct line to the heart. Hence, the wedding band going on the left digit.
None of this is meant to dissuade you from getting the flowers, or having the bridesmaids or putting a ring on it. I’m merely demonstrating that, often times, traditions can be archaic.
So make your own.
I’ve been in this industry a long, long time. I’ve seen all matter of celebrations from all manner of cultures. And what I’ve come away with is that while traditions aren’t meant to be broken, they’re meant to be forged. And that starts with you.
There’s a change happening. I’ve shot at least three weddings where couples decided to eschew their own last names in favour of something completely new.
Wedding cake? How about wedding cocktail, where the bride and groom made each other a special beverage from a recipe they come up with themselves.
Forget first dance, what about a first DJ set? That’s how a gorgeous couple of mine decided to end their evening, by donning onesies and spinning their favourite tracks in front of a thundering dance floor.
Your wedding day is your own. It’s your self expression, your love, your time to shine. So question tradition and make your own. I guarantee that, decades down the line, you will look back on your day more fondly, not because you had the nicest dress, or the biggest cake, but because your day was authentically your own, with traditions that were uniquely yours. So, forge your own.
