5 Wedding Traditions to Ditch (Volume #2)

These are just strange. Most guests at your wedding don’t know the majority of your bridal party. If you would like to introduce and honor your bridal party, consider slowing it down by dropping the Jock Jams. You can provide a quick intro “this is Marie, best friend of the bride since they were introduced during their freshmen year of college.” Class it up and lose the awkwardness.

Thankfully, the “dollar dance” has largely fallen out of popularity. The tradition is that male wedding guests pay (at least a dollar, sometimes much more) for a brief dance with the bride. It is odd for several reasons. First, your guests are already spending money on a lot of things related to your wedding, including on your gift. It is tacky to panhandle for a few additional bucks. Second, as a bride on your wedding day, do you really want to play the strip club role of “dancing for dollars”? No, you don’t. This is one of the most important wedding traditions to ditch.

If this is your jam, roll with it. However, there are endless possibilities to personalize your wedding by choosing a different song to walk down the aisle. We have seen instrumental versions of everything from Michael Jackson to Billy Joel to the Beatles.

This stems from the tradition of a bridal dowry. Way back in the day, a dowry was paid by the bride’s family to the groom’s family in recognition that the man would need to take on the “burden” of financially supporting the woman. Obviously, this is not at all relevant in today’s world, and this simply needs to be dropped. It is actually sexist to keep up this tradition (really). The expense of the wedding should be reasonably shared by the couple, and if possible, the parents of either or both sides.

We know that you think you are doing a favor for your singles guests. Going stag to a wedding is already enough of a reminder that they are not in a relationship. Granted, you don’t want to put one guest who is flying solo at a table with four married couples. However, you also don’t want to label them as being part of the “singles table”. In our next release of "Wedding Traditions to Ditch", we’ll discuss the tossing of the bouquet and garter.