A lot of my friends are surprised when they find out that I work so many wedding planner jobs. In many ways, I am not the type you expect to be involved in the field. I don't really go in for formality, and I don't like big crowds of people. Nevertheless, I love wedding traditions. One of the nice things about weddings is the place that people give for poetry in the event. Traditions like releasing live doves or butterflies, having toasts to honor the bride and groom, and of course the whole ritual of giving the bride away, are quite charming. The wedding is meant to be a live embodiment of the commitment that the bride and groom are making to eachother, and wedding traditions reflect this.
Of course, there is a lot of room in wedding tradition for your own variations. In Jewish wedding traditions, for example, people carry the bride and groom around on chairs, all while dancing and singing. Some families have a wedding tradition of getting extremely drunk at every event. Other families are much more sober, but love to sing.
It doesn't really matter what you are into – it only matters that you do it as a way of bringing everyone together. If you have a particularly eloquent family, sometimes you can have several rounds of toasts. If, on the other hand, you've a group who loves to party, your wedding tradition should involve live music and dancing late into the night. A wedding is a festival, and the most extravagant one that most people have in their whole life. There's plenty of room for the bride and groom to give free rein to their whimsy.
Of course, a traditional wedding also has its charms. Many people like the sobriety of a commitment ritual. Even people who I wouldn't expect to have a very serious and formal wedding often go in for this. You see, in the modern world there is so much less ritual and formality than ever before. Many people view marriage as sacred in a way that they don't view many other things. Wedding traditions are a way to cement the bonds of matrimony, and sometimes a wedding can make the most impact when it is an extremely sober and straightforward events. It is all a matter of what is important to you in your wedding ceremony. After all, it is your special day.
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