Image via The Bahamas Weekly / Photo by Tim Aylen
That's all fine and dandy, and I've fallen into the "ohmigoodness must personalize" wedding mentality on more than one occasion. However, I do think there's something to be said for traditions being maintained in their expected manner. They're traditions for some reason or another, meaning a decent enough group of people over a handful of generations deemed them to be worthwhile practices for a wedding. This isn't some fly-by-night, crazy, off-the-wall idea that you're incorporating into your big day... it's a practice that links you with many weddings of the past as well as many weddings of the future.
All this soapbox-preaching has a point, I promise. Mr. Snow Cone and I are doing our best to infuse personalized details into the entire wedding day, but we're still, at the heart of things, some pretty traditional folk. We like familiarity, which is probably why we watch the same episodes of Friends and The West Wing over and over and over again. We want our wedding to be personal but still comfortable and familiar for both us and our guests, which is why we've decided to pursue the traditional route and toss the bouquet and garter.
We're the first of our friends to get married, so I'm optimistic that our younger, unmarried guests haven't been to so many weddings to grow weary of this tradition. The way I see it is that you only have one day in your life when you can actually toss your bouquet and your garter. It seems kind of silly to me to throw that one opportunity away just because some people see this tradition as annoying, outdated, or just plain icky. Mr. Snow Cone and I want our wedding to be fun, personal, and traditional. We want the memory of all of our high school and college friends gathering up for the respective tosses. We (or at least I) want the fun photos that go with the tosses.
Image via In Love with Weddings / Photos by Kelly Vasami Photography
Image via Luster Studios
Really, truly, the decision to have the traditional tosses was an easy one for us. But don't worry, we've already agreed to work out a signal for the DJ in case the thought of the garter-catcher placing his new trophy on the bouquet-catcher is just too awkward (think: relatives and/or cringe-worthy age gap). We want tradition, not sheer mortification for everyone in the room.
Are you doing the tosses at your reception? Why or why not?
We didn't do a bouquet or garter toss for a few reasons. 1) My husband is a few years older than me and most of his friends are already married, and 2) I'm one of the first ones of my friends to get married, but many many many of my friends are DYING to get married and don't want to go out and try to catch the bouquet because they don't like how it feels to be paraded around as a "single girl" (I think I had 4-5 girlfriends say this to me). At the last few weddings I went to, I hated going to catch the bouquet too, so it was a no-brainer to nix it.
ReplyDeletewe're going to do tosses. i think they're fun and i'm glad you're incorporating them into your wedding too. ps...i love the pics! those are really cute :)
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