My Nontraditional Wedding
If you're like me, you recently got married.
More specifically, you got married in the woods with nothing but the changing leaves, ambient animal noise, and 15 other people you invited, (including the bride.) The photographer was a close friend and the internet approved officiant had on more than one occasion hit you with typewriter shrapnel. The entire thing lasted about 10 minutes and you and your team pulled it off in less than 5 weeks from the proposal. My guess is though, you're not like me.
When my wife and I told folk how we wanted the day to go, more than one said something to the effect of, "but that's not tradition." Well, technically we were given friendly if confused glances and told how lovely and "different" the idea was, but the meaning was implied. We were somehow violating an ancient magical ceremony and if we didn't check off all the boxes on the list, the wedding spell wouldn't work. Weddings had always looked the same and always would. Tradition must be adhered to.
I wasn’t quite sure how to take that. First, my rebellious side spoke up and wondered who these other people were telling me how I had to get married. I wanted to scrap the plans and get married while hanging upside down from a parachuting elephant to prove that they couldn’t tell me how to live.
After putting those impulses to rest, I thought about the logic of weddings all being the same. I don’t know you or your mother but mine always told me that “everyone else is doing it” was a terrible reason for doing anything. The assumption that everyone else is getting married and in a similar fashion was not sufficient reason for my wife and me to follow along. In fact, as a general rule we take that as a sign that we should head in the opposite direction. A similar streak of independence is why last year, marriage in America hit its lowest rate in 100 years. Folks want to show unity and companionship in new, different, and thoughtful ways which seems like an appropriately American expression of communal freedom and liberty. American’s love ornate fanfare almost as much as loudly declaring freedom from tradition.
Of course, a “traditional wedding” looks different with a simple change in geography. Open up a National Geographic for 10 seconds for an example. Flipping back the calendar would also have an impact though, and not just in aesthetics, but in motivation. I didn’t claim my wife by grabbing her by the hair and fighting off any man that objected. The wedding wasn’t a political matter to stop an ages old feud or produce a strong male heir for the Moderow Dynasty. Our union wasn’t arranged to keep the blood lines pure, consolidate the family fortunes, and if it was societal prestige my wife was after, she could have done much better. In the enlightened time we like to think ourselves in though, it’s easy to forget that those are some of the most “traditional” reasons for a marriage. No wonder we’re so scared by a shift in the tradition of the actual wedding.
My nontraditional wedding was a beautiful weekend for all involved because it was an expression of the participants and nothing else. Concerns about legal status, public appearance, religious approval, even the scorn of our ancestors took a back seat. The focus was simply two people declaring that they would rather give up a little independence than continue life’s adventure without the other person. It seems to me that’s the marriage tradition to fight for.
