In many cultures, weddings are heavily laden with symbolic traditions, many of which have slowly disappeared over the years. Greek brides, for example, would traditionally put a sugar cube in their glove to ensure a sweet life, while Indian grooms would have their feet washed by their future mother-in-law.
While many of these historic traditions are now a little outdated, this doesn’t mean you have to shun tradition entirely in a modern ceremony. Whatever your cultural background, there will be various ceremonial ideas and superstitions that have previously been common practice.
So how can you incorporate these ideas into a modern wedding?
Organisation
The way we organise weddings is based on age-old conventions. Save the date cards and wedding invites are practical, but traditional, particularly the way they are formatted.
In many cultures, there are other organisational traditions to take into account too. For particularly religious ceremonies, there may be days that are best avoided.
Within Greek wedding ceremonies, it is good luck to have an odd number of guests as uneven numbers cannot be divided, meaning that your guest list must be chosen carefully!
While you don’t have to follow these and any other appropriate traditions to the letter, it is worthwhile planning them early on. Any traditions you want to pay respect to should really be considered while organising your wedding so you have time to pull them together.
If you’re wondering what traditions you’d like to include, then search online or ask your family members for any smaller familial traditions you’d like to pay respect to.
Traditional dress
The clothes you choose to wear on your wedding day are obviously steeped in tradition, from the colour to the style and everything in between, and there are plenty of ways to include these in a contemporary way.
In Irish weddings brides traditionally wore blue, so if you’re from an Irish background, incorporating hints of blue in your wedding outfit is a good way to pay homage to this tradition.
For brides and grooms from an African background, traditional clothing can often be highly patterned, so adding a hint of colour into your outfit is a nice way to include this if you still want to wear white.
Accessories are a great way to include an element of tradition into your outfit, and things like the bride’s veil, waistband, bodice, trim and shoes, or the groom’s waistcoat, tie, socks, and shoes can be easily customised to showcase this.
Good luck symbols
Many wedding traditions are highly symbolic, and often designed to bring luck to the marriage. Whether or not you believe in such superstitions, including some sort of symbolic good luck charm is a nice thing to do.
You can do this in your outfit, as part of the decor in your venue, or perhaps within your place setting. Many objects are traditionally associated with bringing luck to weddings, such as gold coins, pieces of iron, and horseshoes.
Including these elements in a subtle way within your place setting (particularly on the head table) is a nice way to provide a contemporary twist on tradition.
Whatever approach you choose, including a small piece of tradition is a nice way to honour your family and ancestors without sacrificing your modern wedding.
Article by Plato Catering Hire
