Weddings are the cause for a celebration in every society on earth and have
been so for centuries. The first miracle that Jesus performed according to the
New Testament was to change water into wine at a wedding. History is filled with
tales of weddings and wedding celebrations.
All good fairy tales begin, “Once upon a time” and end with, “They lived happily
ever after”. Almost every little girl begins to plan for her ‘special day’ by the time
she can string that many words together in a sentence. At the risk of sounding
sexist, while little boys are playing cowboys and Indians or conquering outer
space, little girls are trying to decide which one of them would clean up well
enough to participate in her wedding.
In many societies the wedding and the wedding celebrations still follow age-old
traditions. They are done the same way today that they were done hundreds of
years ago. In America and some other countries, however, tradition has turned
into just one choice among many and couples are opting for unique weddings
that are planned around the things they love to do the most or they have themes
that reflect the couple’s planned life style.
Some couples, of course, stick with the traditional wedding and the traditional
wedding vows and wedding celebrations, and these weddings take place in the
traditional church or synagogue setting. The bride is escorted down the aisle by
her father and ‘given away’. The bride wears white, the groom wears a tuxedo,
the bridesmaids and groomsmen are all traditionally attired. The music is
traditional, the flowers are traditional, and the whole wedding and the reception
that follows is traditional.
Other couples opt for ‘doing their own thing’ and throw tradition to the wind. They
want their wedding to be totally unique. These ‘unique’ weddings are sometimes
very beautiful and sometimes they are just plain weird or downright whacky.
These unique weddings can take place in any setting imaginable from beneath
the ocean while scuba diving to on top of a mountain that is only accessible by
helicopter. They have even taken place in mid-air while the couple was sky
diving.
Many couples today write their own vows. The old, ‘Do you take this woman to
be your lawfully wedded wife” has been replaced with words of the couples own
choosing.
