Getting Married in the 21st Century: Throwing Tradition Out the Window

March 4, 2009 - PRLog -- To coincide with the online publication of “Making the Father of the Bride’s Speech” – a book offering help and advice on father of the bride wedding speeches  – HowTo.co.uk takes a look at how modern culture has influenced the bride and grooms big day…

The white dress, the organ, the father of the bride speech, the bouquet toss: when you think of weddings, these are the things that come to mind. Wedding ceremonies in movies and TV shows tend toward this traditional format, with only the colours of the bridesmaid dresses changing.

Other ceremonies are cultural ceremonies, binding the couple with religious rituals as dictated by the community, not the couple. The bridal industry, a multi-billion dollar behemoth, actively promotes the ideal of the "perfect wedding day"—and that it can't be complete without the requisite "traditional" items.

More and more, however, modern couples are bucking tradition. They are throwing out the white dress, opting for mortgage payments instead of diamonds, and enrolling their friends as online-ordained officiants. They are using their wedding ceremony less as a cultural binding ceremony, and more as a celebration of their individual personalities, values, and beliefs. Sites like IndieBride and OffBeat Bride allow couples to explore all the alternatives to traditional ceremonies.

The Way We Were

Weddings serve multiple purposes in different cultures and different times. Hollywood pushes the "true love" connection, but historically weddings have been business arrangements, social contracts, and cultural imperatives. People marry to gain property or wealth, to increase their social standing, or to advance their careers. They marry because their culture demands it, because their society values a stable community over one individual's gains or needs.

Ceremonies typically reflect both cultural traditions such as religious rituals, and family values, where the richness of the celebration represents the family's social and financial standing. The white dress of American and European ceremonies emerged in the Victorian era to represent purity. The three letters and six etiquette custom in Chinese marriages reflects the business arrangement between the groom and the father of the bride.

These customs and rituals arose in response to needs and values of the cultures—modern "traditional" weddings, however, often reflect the needs and values of the bridal industry. For example, the diamond engagement ring worth two months of the groom's salary arose from a DeBeers advertising campaign. This industry picked up on the importance of the wedding, and makes billions every year by marketing items necessary to this "perfect day".

The New Wedding

It's not often easy to coordinate these unique weddings. The industry is geared for the white dress and the big cake, so alternative couples have to start from scratch. For many modern couples, there is no choice. Modern couples marry outside their own culture or race, and same-sex ceremonies are on the rise. For gay marriages, for a Native American marrying into a Hindu family, for pagans and atheists, no cultural template exists. These couples have to create a new, unique ceremony to reflect the boundaries they are crossing.

Feminism also plays a role in modern marriages—many cultural ceremonies have been shaped by the history of using women for barter. They contain references to women as property, as servants, as subjugate to their partners. Some of these are subtle: the father walking the bride down the aisle represents passage of ownership from father to groom. Some are more obvious: the promise to obey in the Biblical bride's vows is notably absent from the groom's.

Modern couples choose to leave out the portions of cultural rituals that conflict with their individual values. They exchange gifts instead of engagement rings, they write their own vows, they create new roles for parents and family members.

They create unique, personal wedding ceremonies that mean more than spending money or forging business arrangements. As society adapts to the mixing of cultures and trends toward the individual, this shift is reflected in this most public of cultural rituals, the wedding ceremony.

At HowTo.co.uk, users can read over 150 free online books, at no charge or download the PDF or buy the hard copy of the book at our online store.

-Ends-

Notes to Editors

1. HowTo offers consumers free access to the full text content of a range of information-based non fiction books across abroad, business, careers, family, learning, money, poker, property, wellbeing and writing sectors. Visitors can read all or part of any of our titles online, or download a PDF version for a small fee.

2. HowTo.co.uk is a joint venture between How To Books Ltd. and On The Move Ltd.

For further information, please contact:

Editor
45 Lafone Street
London SE1 2LX
Tel: +44 207 952 7657
www.howto.co.uk