Wedding Crashers

In Rebecca Mead’s book One Perfect Day, she points out how the wedding industry sells the concept of tradition, in suggesting that the bride and groom “create their own traditions” by “customizing” their ceremonies. What it means is that couples can congratulate themselves for having a traditional wedding, but can also put their own spin on the proceedings. For example, instead of having a flower girl, couples can combine their love of sea turtles with their love of scrapbooking by having a sea turtle transport their beribboned scrapbook down the aisle to kick off the ceremony.

I am all in favor of this, by the way, and I think couples should make their own decisions about their wedding ceremonies. But don’t call it “tradition.” Isn’t a tradition, by definition, something that you don’t create but follow? And is “traditional” a good thing? (consider how the term “traditional marriage” is often used, and who uses it). Even the roots of some of the most benign-seeming wedding traditions are either more sexist than I had even thought, or just so strange I don’t know why we still observe them. Here are just a few that I found:

The bridesmaids and ushers dressed similarly? They are there to fool evil spirits or exes by dressing just like the bride and groom and confusing them. OK, maybe some of my exes would be fooled by someone dressed like me (apologies to any of you reading this), but Scott’s exes would not fall for that. Which begs the larger question: is it fair to lump them in with evil spirits?

The bride usually stands on the left so that the groom’s right hand would be free for swordplay should he be challenged to a duel by a rival at the altar.

The groom is not allowed to see the bride before the wedding because, in arranged marriages, he might back out beforehand if she’s not attractive enough. This tradition lives on: the wedding coordinator on the Mount Washington tried to talk me into changing into my dress in the dressing room on the boat (my thought, also: a dressing room on a boat?) but I declined.

The bouquet is thrown because at one time, wedding guests would pull and tear at the gown of the bride to gain some of her good fortune, sort of the way the zombies did in Night of the Living Dead. To distract them, she threw them the flowers. Then probably a lamp, her shoes, the groom...

The “something old/something blue” tradition is supposed to ward off evil spirits, too. However, the “something borrowed” is supposed to be from a happily married woman, so she can pass her luck in marriage to the bride. I am wearing the necklace of my dearly departed, thrice-widowed (before the age of fifty)Nana. She did have great luck in card games, though—maybe I will inherit that.

The original Roman tradition of cutting the wedding cake went something like this: the groom broke the cake over the bride’s head to symbolize fertility. And this was no soft buttercream confection, either--it was a denser, non-sweet cake made of barley. Why that symbolizes fertility, I have no idea.

Bouquets were originally made of herbs like thyme and garlic and were meant to ward off evil spirits, the original wedding crashers.

One wedding ritual that I think Scott would like is an Italian tradition called “sawhorsing.” While this sounds wildly inappropriate, bear with me. Basically, the bride and groom march to the center of town with a double-handled hacksaw. To the cheering of onlookers, they saw through the log until it is cut in half, symbolizing the teamwork of marriage. Scott likes using saws and always has use for some cut lumber, and I accept any opportunity to tone my arms, so this might be a tradition worth preserving.

We have a long list of traditions that we will be avoiding at our wedding: No unity candle (we were expressly permitted from having “flaming materials” in our function room on the boat, but that’s not the reason: I just don’t like them. Did you know that this did not even originate in any church, but was dreamed up by the wedding industry?). No bridesmaids or ushers. No processional. No bouquet throwing. No cake smashing. No champagne toast. No receiving line. Yes, we are leaving ourselves open targets for myopic exes, evil spirits, and jealous rivals with swords, but it’s a risk we’re willing to take.