Tradition, TRADITION

I do love to partake in traditions from time to time, but it seems as if people go a bit overboard at times.

With the recent number of weddings that I've been to in the past few years it's made me wonder about where wedding traditions come from and why we are so bent on fulfilling everyone of them. Is it to please the people that have graciously given of their time to attend the wedding? Or is it because they really think that the poor single girl that will catch the bouquet will be the next one to walk down the alter? Let me assure you, from experience, that the latter is completely untrue.

I wasn't on any particular quest to investigate this superstitious tradition, and any of the others that precede such a glorious day, but I did happen to come across a blog last week, while looking for examples of wedding photos, that caught my attention. The blog basically shows people tricks on how to have a wedding for under $2000. Pretty cool! At least I think so.

This couple chose to take a road less taken in the over inflated world that has become a wedding planners dream and a brides nightmare. Rather than make their budget conform to what the wedding industry and tradition said they should have, they chose to focus on what was important to them their union of husband and wife (in archives she says they actually came in at around $1900). Minus the dancing and immodest wedding dress the pics make it look like the couple got exactly what they wanted, a nice time with family and friends. It's very inspiring, take a look.

Anyway, she posted an article that she found online that referred to where the wedding traditions that we hold so dear actually came from. I thought I would re-post it myself, click here for the article.

Reading it for me was just reconfirming the thoughts and plans that I desire for my own day, once the Lord blesses me. I'm not a person that feels the need to go with tradition just because everyone else is doing it. The thought of following other peoples ideas of what should be done for a day such as this just rubs me the wrong way. It should be a day that the couple decides what is right for them, not the other way around. Most of the traditions listed have a dark past that is layered with superstition and male chauvinism. I by no means am a superstitious person, as a Christian my conscience won't let me be. To do such, I find, is to give credence to other spirits rather than the Holy Spirit, which goes against whom I'm to be controlled by. Though there are some traditions that I do think are sweet, like the father giving away his daughter, even if it did come from the "right" for a man to sell off his daughter to pay his debts. This tradition I think has evolved into a more sentimental one that is used to symbolize the passing of one authority figure to another. I know for me, though it is not my desire to stay single forever, that should something happen to my Dad before I get married, that no one else gets to have that privilege. I'm sure I'll be able to figure something else out.

What about the dress? Well lets just face it girls, we all want to look and feel like a princess on that day and besides it's just plain fun to shop:) Although for the record I don't think that it should take up a hunk of the budget, like some boutiques think it should.

Who wants to keep a cake top for a year? Not me:) One, I can't eat it and two, GF baked goods tend to spoil faster than regular items. No, I'm thinking pie:) Take a look at what this one new bride did.

One tradition on the list that I particularly appalled by was the bouquet toss. I don't know about you but for me standing in the middle of a circle of ladies, waiting to see if fate will fall upon them in the disposal of unwanted flowers, not to mention the obligatory taunts that come from the blessed onlookers that already have had their fate decided for them, is not really all that fun. Plus the history behind the tradition of the bouquet toss is rather demeaning and vulgar, not the pleasant tossing of fate that we've turned it into, trying dispose of a sordid past. No, that's definitely one tradition that I'm going to revamp, or leave out completely, when my time comes.

All in all I found the traditions and the history behind them interesting to say the least and thought I would share for those of you who might have wondered about them for yourself.