Groom

No Maid of Honor? No Problem!
If you don’t want a maid of honor, it can be helpful to familiarize yourself with this information before deciding what the best choice is for your big day.

If you don’t want a maid of honor, it can be helpful to familiarize yourself with this information before deciding what the best choice is for your big day.

There are a lot of moving parts involved with planning your wedding. Often, couples want all the help possible to get the entire event up and running. Having a maid of honor can be invaluable during this time, as this individual tends to take on a lot of duties throughout the process. Still, you may not feel like you want a maid of honor. There are plenty of reasons for this decision, from not knowing who to select to wanting to keep the affair simple. There is no rule saying you absolutely must have someone fill this role.

If you don’t want a maid of honor, it can be helpful to familiarize yourself a bit with the choice you’re making. Look over this information and decide what the best choice is for your big day.

What Does the Maid of Honor Do?

The maid of honor is usually responsible for a number of different tasks associated with the wedding. Usually these responsibilities include throwing a shower and bachelorette party, taking on jobs like mailing invitations, and keeping tabs on all the members of the wedding party. When you don’t have someone acting in this role, you will need to either take these tasks on yourself or find someone who can organize things for you. Having help is always a plus, even when you aren’t asking someone to be your maid of honor.

You also will need to think about your wedding party. Are you planning on having bridesmaids and groomsmen? You can still have a wedding party without a maid of honor. In fact, some couples make the choice to forego this position in the party because there are too many qualified options. When you don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings, you can ditch the maid of honor and simply go with having bridesmaids. This can ultimately be a helpful decision, as you can delegate various duties to each member of the party rather than relying on one specific person.

Party On

As mentioned, the maid of honor is also the person who traditionally puts together the wedding shower. By removing this person from the equation, you’ll need to arrange the plans yourself or find someone else who can take on the job. This could be a perfect task for your mother or the mother of your partner, especially if she wanted to get involved and you didn’t know what to offer. You may also want to see if the members of your wedding party would like to plan this for you, though it is likely you’ll need to give warning.

Showers are also not a requirement. If you had an engagement party, then throwing a shower might be a bit too much. These days, couples are moving away from the traditional route of having a shower. You’re already planning your wedding; you might not want to add yet another event to your calendar that you need to help organize. When you opt not to have a maid of honor, you’ll need to make this decision for yourself and determine whether or not you find a shower necessary.

Trusting Your Significant Other

In the past, the maid of honor would take on a lot of responsibilities that otherwise could have been performed by the groom-to-be. Since more and more couples are contributing equally when it comes to planning a wedding, it is likely you can simply ask your partner to take on many of the jobs the maid would have received. When you have the support of your significant other, the entire process will be a lot easier than trying to do everything by yourself.

The decision to use a maid of honor in your wedding comes down to your own preference. As long as you have people who can assist you along the way, you should be able to take on whatever tasks await.

 

Fascinating Traditions in Canadian Weddings
Catching the bouquet is one of the oldest marriage traditions.

One of the most common wedding traditions practiced to this day is the catching of the bride’s bouquet.

The idea of getting married is nothing new. In fact, weddings are some of the oldest ceremonies to have been documented across all civilizations. There are a lot of traditions that have persisted through the years even if the mentality behind a wedding has changed. In Canada, for example, there are plenty of unique ways of going about the process of marrying your partner.

Common Wedding Traditions

Planning for a wedding requires time and research. Here are a few wedding practices that appear often in Canadian rituals in the current day and age, as well as in other cultures across the world.

Catch the Bouquet

One common tradition found in many weddings is the tossing of the bouquet. Traditionally, this is an act by the bride, who tosses the flowers backwards over her shoulder toward a crowd of single friends and relatives. It is customary for this part of the ceremony to only include women, but shifting attitudes have shown that single men can also get in on the fun if the married couple so wishes. The history behind this act is a bit more interesting than might be first believed.

In older cultures, it was common for single women to tear away a piece of the bride’s dress. This was meant as a gesture of good luck for the women holding the strip of garment. As wedding dresses became more expensive, brides found that it was a bit much to have their families and friends tearing away at their beautiful gowns. The bouquet toss was a custom introduced to ward away women who wanted a piece of luck and provide them with a competitive chance for their wishes.

Eternal Love

Some traditions are so ingrained in the cultural sphere that it’s hard to imagine another way of going about the process. Rings, for example, are the cornerstone of an engagement and subsequent wedding. There have been many different approaches to the exchanging of rings over the years. Essentially, experts have traced the tradition of the ring back to Egypt in its earliest days of civilization.

The Egyptians would trade rings as a sign of eternal love and commitment. Eventually, due to the conquests of the Greeks and Romans, the tradition was adopted. As civilization expanded through Europe, the custom became more widespread until it reached the height that it exists at now. The custom of wearing a wedding ring on a specific finger can also be traced back to the Egyptians. They believed that the third finger on the left hand was the one most closely connected to the human heart.

White Wedding

A common practice in the modern age is for a woman to wear white on her wedding day. This is actually not as old of a tradition as many might believe. In Western culture, the custom of wearing white began as a way of symbolizing the purity of the bride. This started during the Victorian Era in England and has persisted to the modern day in many countries. What’s more fascinating is that brides across the world wore a multitude of colors on their wedding day before this practice began.

White was a rare color to be seen during a ceremony in earlier traditions. It has lively and vibrant colors being more closely associated with the passion and beauty of shared love. Though it seems that most brides wear white in the current age, the trend is being pushed against. More women are wearing dresses that match their personal tastes rather than taking part in a tradition that holds no meaning for them.

As you plan your wedding, consider the meaning behind current customs. You may want to break from tradition or go with the flow – the choice is yours.

Wedding Traditions From Around The World
Certain wedding traditions have been practiced for hundreds of years.

There are all kinds of traditions that continue through the world. Many have similarities while others can be vastly different.

If you’re trying to plan a unique ceremony for your special day, check out some of these special wedding traditions from around the world.

 

 

 

Wedding Traditions from other Cultures

  • Congo – Brides and grooms aren’t allowed to smile on their wedding day. When they do, it shows that they aren’t serious about the marriage.
  • China – The bride travels to the groom’s home in a decorated sedan chair. Attendants take care of the bride on the journey by holding parasols to shield her from the elements. They throw rice at the chair as a sign of prosperity and health. Female bridesmaids put the groom through a series of tests for him to prove his worthiness of the bride. He must give them envelopes of money before they’ll allow him to have their friend.
  • Fiji – The potential bridegroom must present his father with a whale’s tooth when he asks for her hand in marriage.
  • Jamaica – The bride is paraded through the streets. If the villagers go home, it means she didn’t look her best. She must go home and spruce herself up for another go.

Some Other Cultures Practices

  • Guatemala – The groom’s parents host the reception party. The groom’s mother breaks a ceramic bell filled with grains to give the couple prosperity.
  • Germany – The guests break porcelain dishes in front of the new home. The bride and groom are to clean these dishes up together as a demonstration of working together to overcome anything.
  • Scotland – Gretna Green is the place to elope. In medieval times, Gretna Green would marry young couples who did not always have parental permission.
  • Kenya – The bride’s father spits on her as she leaves the reception. It’s thought to preempt fate by not seeming too supportive of the couple.
  • Greece – The best man (or groom’s best friend) shaves the groom before the wedding. The new mother-in-law feeds him honey and almonds.
  • Japan – A Shinto bride wears white from head to toe. The head covering is thought to hide the horns of jealousy toward her new mother-in-law. The white symbolizes her maidenhood.
  • Norway – The traditional cake is called kransekake. It’s a tower of almond cake rings stacked on top of each other. The center is often filled with a wine bottle. The bride may wear a gold and silver crown with small trinkets as part of her wedding finery. As she moves, the trinkets jingle, which scares off the evil spirits.
  • Russia – Couples partake of a sweetbread called karavaya which is decorated with grains of wheat for fertility. Whoever takes the largest bite without using their hands is thought to be the head of the family.

As you go through this list, you might notice that many of the wedding traditions are similar to customs we have here. It just shows that we’re more alike than we think.