Traditions

1. Speeches: We asked Fr. Mike to say the blessing over the meal that began the evening, and he did a beautiful job blessing the food, the couple, and everyone in the room. A perfect ushering of the Lord from the ceremony to the reception.

The best man and two matrons of honor each gave a speech about the families coming together, and, as they were all siblings of the bride and groom, they each had touching insight into the couple and the wedding.

We decided very firmly that there would be no open mic at the reception and no additional speeches. However, we knew that our close family and friends would still want to say something, so we hosted an open mic at the rehearsal dinner. That was a lot of fun!

2. Offering of flowers to Our Lady: It is a catholic tradition to offer flowers to the Blessed Virgin Mary. There was no hesitation for us, we wanted Our Lady to be watching over us in our lives together. Acknowledging her as our mother was a testament to this. Also, the sung Ave Maria was so beautiful it made my godfather cry. Additionally, it was the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.

3. Bouquet/Garter Toss: This was something John thought was going to be fun. He wasn’t wrong! It is such a silly tradition, but people get so into it!

The girls screamed as the bouquet went up! One of my bridesmaids caught it and immediately turned around to give to someone who was going to get engaged in the next couple of months (although she didn’t know it yet!). Adorable!

The guys got in a fight over the garter and were rolling on the floor. A long time friend finally got it in the end and ran around in victory!

4. Grand Exit: Oh yeah. Sparkler exit. It was amazing for the pictures, yes it was! Our wedding was literally 2 weeks after the 4th of July, how could we not have a sparkler exit?! One of my bridesmaids and I went to boontown Missouri to get 200 of them half off over the 4th of July weekend.

Medium length sparklers is where its at. Too long and you can’t find a large enough bucket to put them when you’re done. Too short and they don’t last.

9:30pm came around too quickly for us. So we exited, chatted, and ultimately decided we wanted to go back in for the last hour and dance some more. 🙂 Everyone got HYPED.

5. First Look is Down the Aisle: John and I did not see one another after the rehearsal dinner until I was walking down the aisle. It was very important to him, and I found this tradition very touching. We wrote one another letters that we read on the morning of the wedding. It made the anticipation all the more exciting when I first saw him standing there waiting.

6. Cutting the Cake: We did this immediately after the grand entrance. That way they were able to take the cake back to get it cut for serving. We also had everyone’s attention already.

First Dance: It seemed pretty obvious to us that we should do this tradition, but it is not always the case for couples! I have heard that the Anniversary Dance can be the first one – especially if the couple is self conscious about their dancing skills.

Traditions We Didn’t Do

Anniversary Dance: We actually requested that this one be done, but the dance floor was so packed the whole night, and the evening so full of other things that foregoing it ended up not being too big of a deal.
Mother/Groom, Father/Bride Dance
Something Old, New, Borrowed, Blue
Dollar Dance
Wedding Favors: Instead of putting our budget into a little something for each guest to take, we used it toward other ways of accommodating our guests.
Unity Candle/Unity Cord
Cake Topper: Our cake decorator did a beautiful job with the same flowers and greenery that we used in the centerpieces.
Grooms Cake: Indian Hills Country Club was able to make a cake with our two flavor choices on separate tiers, so we didn’t need to have a grooms cake.
Father-of-the-Bride reception welcoming speech