Are Traditional Weddings A Thing of the Past?
Photo: Everett Collection
When news broke that Cameron Diaz had married Benji Madden in a quiet backyard ceremony on Monday, more than a few eyebrows were raised because: Monday? Really!? (OK eyebrows were raised for a lot of reasons.)
It’s a well-known fact that Monday’s the worst day of the week (followed closely by Wednesday). According to The Knot’s Jamie Miles, most brides agree: as few as 1% choose to get married on the first day of the week—and not just because Mondays suck. Getting married on a weekend is a practical choice, it’s when working guests and out-of-towners can attend. (Of course, if you’re Cameron Diaz and none of your friends work 9-to-5 jobs, this isn’t really a problem; and if you work a 9-to-5 job and get invited to Cameron Diaz’s wedding, you take the day off.)
That being said there are some pros to a Monday wedding: Namely, it’ll cost less. Miles puts the cost-saving potential at 20%. And according to the Knot, more brides and grooms are choosing to take advantage of “off-day” weddings. Saturday still remains the most common day to get married, but Friday and Sunday are rising in popularity.
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“We weren’t concerned about getting married specifically on a Saturday or weekend,” explains newlywed Carleton Eckhardt, who was married this summer in Greece. “We chose the Thursday of our wedding week because it seemed like a good day to get married, we had a positive feeling about that particular day.”
Maybe Diaz is onto something. After all, weddings have become more about self-expression and personalization than tradition. According to The Knot’s annual survey, more couples are opting for casual weddings (17%) and personalized ceremonies (43%) while fewer couples than ever (33%) choose to get married in a religious institution.
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Here, a few more untraditional wedding trends we might start to see more of:
Surprise or “Ambush” Weddings. Couples are doing away with the often fraught and stressful six-month planning period, opting instead to make the whole thing a surprise. “At first we were just going to get married at City Hall and call it a day,” explains Andy Dao, a New York-based creative director, who wed his wife Erendira this summer. “But the more we thought about it, we decided it would be great to throw a party afterwards to surprise our families and friends.” A month before the big day, Erendira sent a Facebook invite to all their friends and family, inviting them to Andy’s “surprise birthday party.” The day before the wedding, the duo let their families in on the secret, though their friends were still in the dark. When guests arrived they were greeted with a sign reading, “Congrats Andy and Erendira,” and offered a specialty cocktail dubbed ‘The Couple.’
Explains Andy: “Our friends were speculating whether this was really a surprise birthday party? An engagement party? Was she pregnant? Moments later we arrived and people yelled, ‘Surprise!’ There was a really funny moment afterwards when our friends realized that the surprise was actually on them. We’ll never forget that.”
Also gaining in popularity: weddings where even the bride is surprised! According to Us Weekly, Ludacris recently surprised his fiance Eudoxie with a “spur-of-the-moment wedding, complete with a beautiful white dress,” just days after she had accepted his proposal.
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Guests Wear White. Once considered the ultimate sin (at least in the Western world), some brides today are actually encouraging their guests to wear white. When fashion writer Christina Perez was planning her wedding to husband Thomas Beckner on a beach in Tulum, the two decided on an all-white dress code when they learned about the cosmic Mayan ceremony. “ It incorporates so many of the elements we love: super spiritual and participatory, everyone stands in a circle around the couple during the ceremony and plays music and sings,” says Perez. “Shamans perform the ceremony and everyone is supposed to wear shades of white so as not to disrupt the flow of energy—the lack of color is supposed to keep everything pure and focused. We thought that was a beautiful idea.” Perez’s guests loved having some of the stress taken out of the what-to-wear dilemma, and, besides, the dress code makes for pretty awesome photos. Just ask Solange.
Winter Weddings. Summer, long-considered to be “wedding season,” is slowly making its way out of fashion, according to the Knot’s survey. Spring and fall weddings are on the rise. Surprisingly, even winter weddings are becoming more popular, with 7% (up from 5%) of couples opting to tie the knot in the colder months. Florida-native Teresa Prescott wed her husband Ben in Colorado last January; having a snowy wedding made it all the more exotic and special. “It was important for us to share a locale we’ve dreamed of visiting and we wanted to have our wedding at a place where we could actually spend quality time with our very large and dispersed families,” says Prescott, a law clerk finishing up law school at Stetson University College of Law. “With both of us living in Florida, we decided to get away from our daily chaos, and marry in a world of soundless snow.” The two fell in love with the breathtaking vista at Colorado ski resort town Steamboat Springs and knew it was the right spot—and time of year—for them. “The views of the towering snow-white adorned mountains lent a sublime and timeless feel to the festivities, while the wood-lined cabins and champagne snow created a softness and warmth—despite the freezing temperatures,” says Prescott.
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Bridesmen and Groomswomen. When it comes to the important people in your life, why should gender matter? “I had three bridesmaids as well as a bridesman stand beside me on my wedding day,” says Eckhardt. “We didn’t really think too much about it, we just wanted a wedding that really embodied us and that was it.” For women with close guy friends or brothers, having men in the bridal party is a touching way to acknowledge the important role they’ve played in their lives.
With tradition and religion playing an increasingly smaller role in the big day, it’s all about the individual couples’ wants and needs. Each of the brides and grooms we spoke to talked about the importance of having a wedding that truly reflected them as a couple. So, when it comes to your wedding: just do you.
