For most of my life I assumed that if I got married, certain things would happen a certain way. I assumed I’d get married in a church. I assumed I wouldn’t see my partner on the wedding day before the ceremony. I also assumed my partner wouldn’t see my dress until the moment I walked down the aisle. I assumed I wouldn’t talk to our guests before the ceremony. I held all these assumptions because I’d never seen a wedding done any differently.
Then, a year before we got engaged, the beau and I went to the wedding of two old friends. It was held in the backyard of an uncle’s house. Our friends hung out in the yard with us before the ceremony. There was a root beer float table. During the ceremony, us guests all held aloft our wine and champagne glasses, whooping and hollering our support. The catered dinner was all vegetarian, and it was one of the most delicious meals I had that year. During dinner there was an open mic, and people — in various states of drunkenness — wandered up to deliver spontaneous, teary speeches of love. After dinner there was tiramisu, lovingly made by an aunt, and a mariachi band played and we danced until our feet fell off. After we shut the backyard down, we hobbled (and wobbled) to a nearby bar and continued celebrating deep into the night.
Yeah. This was my wedding blog inspiration before I even knew there were wedding blogs.
But it wasn’t the little details that got me about this wedding, because I can’t even recall how it was decorated. And it wasn’t their deviance from wedding tradition that made it cool and fun. It was just them. Our friends managed to remain true to themselves, and that was reflected throughout the entire day. They felt comfortable and relaxed, so we felt comfortable and relaxed. If I squeeze my eyes shut and think really hard, I can recall that there were challenges that day — the disruption of the ceremony by a squalling child, the overbearing heat that made sweat trickle down my back, the raining ash from a nearby wildfire.* But when I think of their wedding, I don’t think of any of that. I just remember all the love.
The beau and I still remark to each other that that was the best wedding we’ve ever been too. The experience was like a lightbulb flickering on. It was a rebuttal to my assumptions about how to go about my wedding. It was a challenge to validate my reasoning for keeping or ditching certain traditions. And most importantly, it was a permission slip to do things the way that felt right to me, even if I’d never seen them done at a wedding before. It was permission to just be us, whatever that involved.
Since we got engaged, this has been the wedding we return to every time we’re trying to clarify our goals. This is the wedding we reference every time we’re trying to find the words to describe a specific feeling. And I feel so fortunate that we have our friends’ wedding to look up to as we go through the planning process — we’d feel adrift without it.
Do you have a wedding role model?
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* YES. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? What a nightmare.
This sounds like my kind of wedding! We’re also greeting our guests before the ceremony. My dream is to have them follow us to a piece of open field next to our reception pavilion, drinks in hand and hollar, hoot and cheer during and after the ceremony. I don’t think we have a wedding idol, but we have fond memories of backyard barbecues with family and friends and we use that for our inspiration.
This is lovely though. I’ll have to share it with Josh. I think it will help keep us on the right track.
Yay! Some good foundation for some real wedding pillar ish, right there. 😀
Oh, for sure! You know this! Thank you for sharing this wedding with us!
Oh man. I wish. We’ve only been to traditional, fancy weddings, which originally made me refuse to throw a wedding. I didn’t want that. Only after I saw some more casual bashes on the web did I agree to go forward. I would love to have an experience like this so I didn’t feel like such a revolutionary. Instead it is as if we are charting new territory to many of my relatives and a few friends.
I didn’t go to my wedding inspiration. My family has a fairly large tradition of elopements. The week before my HS graduation, my cousin and his wife went to the Caymans. His wife’s mother had died that year so they scapped plans for a formal wedding and took scuba lessons instead. They went scuba diving all day, went back to the hotel and changed. The concierge was licensed to perform weddings. He grabbed a couple from the bar to act as witnesses, the hotel photographer and the hotel videographer. The seven of them climbed up to a cliff over looking the ocean and they were married at sunset. Celebrated with the five people at the hotel bar with huge fruity drinks, food and dancing. They came to my brother’s wedding the next week, and didn’t say a word until we got back to the house after the wedding. They put the scuba video into the VCR and just waited until the video switched from Scuba to wedding. We all agreed it was the prettiest and happiest wedding we had never been to.
wow! i wish! nope…every wedding i’ve ever been to has been “traditional” – with the big fancy poofy white dress and all. so to ME/our fam/friends – our wedding is gonna be CRAZY! except, here in blogland, it’s so ordinary. it’s all just very interesting.
I’m willing to bet you’ll win them over with the crazy awesomeness, though. Sometimes people are surprisingly open to change.
It’s so great that you got to experience something like that even before you got engaged; it’s a solid representation of something different from the mainstream. I think that’s the best possible way to get wedding inspiration. If more weddings were like that, every engaged couple who wanted to do things differently would have a much easier time forging their own path. Unfortunately, I’ve only been to ultra traditional, conservative weddings which followed every wedding rule in the proverbial book. And honestly, if I hadn’t discovered the wedding blog world, that’s probably how our wedding would have turned out because I simply didn’t know any different.
a root bear float table! that is so awesome
Only traditional weddings here too…. and this post is really interesting because I’m still attempting to rewrite the flow of the day in my head.
E.g. At basically every wedding I’ve been to, the couple disappears after the ceremony to do photos. I’m not so convinced of this anymore. You do this incredible, momentous, life-changing thing…. and then spend the next hour doing a photoshoot? Perhaps instead we should BE THERE enjoying our own wedding cocktail hour. Then again maybe this time apart from everyone will be wonderful and special. I’m trying to imagine how it will all feel (since I have no wedding role model here) and I really don’t know. I guess the script that is handed down to us serves a purpose – it gives us an outline and a rough timeline that works – so changing it does take some real consideration.
I’m interested to hear what both of you come up with. We have a couple of friends taking pictures for us, so we’re also letting them have full creative freedom. I don’t think I want to do posed pictures after the ceremony because there is no way I’m missing out on the party.
I’m with you about the photos, Nina. I’ve heard arguments to the contrary — why not take pictures when you’re at you’re happiest? But I kind of think that I won’t necessarily be aglow with mellow bliss right after the ceremony. I’ll be kinda frazzled and teary, and I will be in no mood to stand still and listen to a photographer.
I think that the “photos after the wedding” script came about because of the “first look” deal. Some love the emotion of a first look, but for me, I think being able to see my partner before the ceremony will help keep me grounded.
The plans have not yet been set in stone, but I’m thinking that we’ll do the posed shots with the family before the ceremony. After the ceremony is over with, we have to make some kind of exit, anyway — not having an aisle, we’re going to have to leave out of the doors we came in.
The next block over from our venue, there’s a little courtyard with a fountain. We think we may run over there for about ten minutes just to be by ourselves and freak out a little bit. Once we’ve calmed down a bit, we’ll walk back into the party and grab a cocktail.
I love the Jewish tradition of the Yichud. Seclusion for 15 minutes alone together with a snack right after the ceremony. I’m trying to figure out how to work this into our day.
John is somewhat into the “first look” at the aisle deal, while I’m more with you in thinking that seeing him ahead of time will calm me – which is why this continues to be a topic of conversation.
And we will definitely have to do family photos after the ceremony – certain family members are notoriously late and anticipating that (and then dealing with it when it happens) will totally stress me out.
Sarah – I’m learning that I love Jewish wedding traditions! The yichud is genius and I also love the walk down the aisle with both parents. We’re doing that and also trying to work in some brief time alone after the ceremony.
The courtyard idea of yours Lyn sounds just right!
Mine is similar to yours. As much as I love details, I couldn’t even tell you what flowers (if any) they had on their tables. I DO remember the mediterranean food though! Our friends got married in a family members backyard…she wore a vintage-inspired dress that she got for $50. There was no wedding party just close friends doing readings. We danced the night away to an iPod mix and then went skinny dipping in the local hot springs with some old hippies. It was amazing.
I definitely haven’t had a wedding experience like this.
I don’t think what we are planning is anything out of the ordinary, but future Mammy-in-law keeps saying how DIFFERENT it will be. Baby steps, I suppose.
I think your wedding role model is my new wedding role model! That sounds aMAZing!
A couple of our friends got married last summer and it was pretty close to what we have been envisioning, though we are also changing a lot of things. It’s nice to have a point of reference. More than basing it on another event we went to, though, I think we’re trying to base our wedding on things we have done together that feel like us – a big ol’ mashup of Bird and Turtle packed into one delicious, musical day!