You know us, we are 100% when it comes to encouraging you to eschew the standard wedding traditions and do things your way – it always makes for the most interesting weddings!
Today on the blog we welcome BiBi Raven of Truly Experiences who has some great ideas to shake things up a bit when it comes to your wedding. Some of these we’ve started to see, so hopefully you can be inspired to go for what makes you happy!
No one can deny that your wedding day is one of the most important events in your life.
For a lot of couples, following the wedding traditions of their culture is the obvious choice. Everyone knows what to expect, and it especially makes the senior wedding guests happy to see the traditions are respected by the younger folk. But sometimes you might not want to go the obvious route. Maybe because you find it boring, or because it’s not entirely YOU.
The essential question here is, how do you want your wedding to be? As unique as possible, expressing who you are and how you want to live your life together? But what about the expectations of your family? Time to get creative, and add just enough flavor to common wedding traditions that will spice up your wedding.
1. Make-Your-Own Bar Menu
On your wedding day, you definitely don’t want bad wine or desserts to ruin the magic. To solve that problem, hire a company to serve your own self-designed cocktail or desserts. To give your wedding a personalised twist, you can make a list of all the quality drinks and foods that you’ve tasted before and let those make up your own wedding bar.
Why not work with your favourite local restaurant? Let them serve the wine that you shared on your first date. You could also have them create your favourite desserts, be it a decadent triple layer chocolate cake or colourful macaroons. There are countless dessert ideas for you to choose from. In this way, other than simply serving food, you’re also re-telling your love story.
2. Create a Theme for Your Wedding
Indeed, everyone’s wedding has a theme. However, you could make your theme unique to stand out! Instead of an “all purple” theme, why not embrace a “lavender” theme by using lavender everywhere. You could also introduce lavender cake and lavender style accessories for each guest!
Not a huge fan of a specific colour or flower? That’s ok. You can make your favourite movie the theme. If you love Harry Potter, why not give everyone a wand that’ll guide them to their seats? When the lights are out and everybody’s waiting for the bride, encourage the guests to wave their wands with artificial lights on, creating a sense of magic! How wonderful!
~ or maybe like our clients Katie and Tom you can give every guest a Bertie Bott’s bean to eat with hilarious consequences! ~ ed, Lina
3. Have a Typewriter as your Guest Book
Photo by rawpixel.com from Pexels
If you want to be creative, let’s be creative everywhere! They give a nostalgic, classic feel and charm that a computer simply does not have.
Typewriters can also be a very useful tool for your wedding as everything typed cannot be easily erased or rewritten. When your guests are coming in, introduce them to an old typewriter and ask them to type a sentence of congratulatory words. Get old-fashioned in a modern way! Not only will your guests find that interesting to do, but the wedding couple will also see it as a valuable gift years later.
4. Have a Polaroid Camera
If a typewriter is not your thing, you can have a polaroid camera to add value to your wedding. During the wedding, let them sign their names and take a photo. In the end, you could collect all the pictures and make a memory book, reminding you of who was there for you on your big day alongside your professional wedding photos.
5. A Clutter-free Wedding Gift List
A wedding brings in the beginning of a new chapter in your relationship. And most times that includes a mountain of wedding gifts, new things to be added to all the stuff you’ve collected in your life. But for more and more people, life is no longer about collecting things. It’s about having new experiences, exploring the world, trying new foods or learning new skills.
If you’re of the same mindset, you might not be looking forward to a new toaster or luxury soap set. But because your family and friends want to show their love by showering you with gifts, you can choose to fill your wedding registry with non-material, experience wedding gifts. This way, you can extend that honeymoon feeling throughout the whole first year of your married life, enjoying mini-adventures. You grow closer to your spouse with each experience, and your wedding guests will love seeing you two actually enjoy their wedding presents!
6. Wedding Silent Disco
Want to change the traditional dancing at your wedding? Because getting down and funky happens at pretty much every wedding, here is a suggestion to make yours unique: a silent disco. When everyone puts on their headsets and starts singing and dancing to whatever song they’re listening to, it’ll add that extra bit of fun! This is particularly great if you have different genre tastes.
7. Toss the Bouquet Toss
The bride throwing her bouquet into a crowd of single ladies to see who will be married next is one of the oldest wedding traditions in the book. An exciting moment for some, it may leave some women feeling uneasy and not eager to participate.
To get everyone in on the action, throw something other than the traditional bouquet. Why not throw your wedding favors? Here you can invite everybody to participate, not just single women. If there are children at your wedding, you can even toss sweets and toys.
8. Play Games Together
Who says a wedding has to be serious, you can enjoy your day by playing games! Make you and your spouse a team and compete with all the other guests. There could be ball games, card games, and even childish games that you have always wanted to play again but felt too embarrassed to do so. Now is your time to do whatever you want to make it special! Games will not only boost the relationship between you and your partner, but will also create a healthy atmosphere at the wedding.
9. Design Your Wedding Dress
You don’t have to buy wedding dresses at luxury stores – go high street or even design it yourself. Although fashion has probably changed since then, draw inspiration from your younger self to create the dress of your dreams. You can make it long, short, poofy, straight cut; even get rid of the color white! Maybe you’d prefer a jumpsuit? Wearing white on your wedding day is an old tradition that’s becoming increasingly outdated. Simply choose a dress in your favourite colour and go with it!
10. Get Rid of the Wedding Dress Altogether
Long gone are the days where the bride is expected to wear a white wedding dress. And long gone are the days of even having a dress (or bride!) With the wonderful rise in LGBTQ partnerships and marriages, couples should no longer feel the pressure of having to adhere to traditional dress codes. Feel free to wear whatever makes you feel special and comfortable! Want to wear those horrid Hawaiian themed shirts you were wearing when you first met? Absolutely. Want to wear Harry Potter magical robes to conform with your movie theme? Do it.
Remember, it’s your day, so be you!
