We as humans have been celebrating the unity of two people in love for literal millennia . Over those thousands of years, different cultures and religions around the world influenced the institution of marriage until it became what it is today.
And while weddings are still common practice , there are a whole bunch of traditions that we could definitely do away with. Redditors shared the traditions that they absolutely hate .
“Throwing confetti (or rice) at the couple outside the front doors of the church after the ceremony to wish them ‘good luck.'”
“The pastor of one church asked those in attendance to ‘please throw $20 bills instead to spare the sexton a huge clean-up job.”
“Going deeply into debt to make it happen in the first place.”
The average wedding costs around $20,000 , but can set you back up to $30,000, depending on what state you live in. With that much money, you could do so many other, really cool things.
“Wedding showers.”
“Being a female person, I get invited to a lot of these, and they’re all pretty much the same: sitting around eating finger sandwiches, tentatively sipping white wine, and watching the bride open boilerplate registry gifts and Bed Bath & Beyond gift cards for 3 hours. No thanks.”
“Smashing cake into each other’s face.”
“I’d be pissed if my husband did that to me. Most women spend a lot of money for that perfect look on their wedding day and even if they don’t, they spend a lot of time doing their own make up. I think it’s very mean.”
No one gets dressed and made up just to have cake smushed in their face.
“Registering for gifts. Giving gift cards instead of cash, although this applies to more than just weddings.”
“I mean, we eventually spent the $1200 in Target gift cards, but it would’ve been cool to spend it at other places as well.”
Actually, it’s really weird that you’re kind of expected to give a couple a gift that you picked out of a list of things they’re telling people to get them.
“Asking the father or the parents for their permission or blessing.”
“I’m not marrying a child here. I’m marrying an adult who can make her own decisions.”
In a perfect world, a couple’s parents would have nothing to do with their marriage…
“Engagement rings. Obscene waste of money to support an evil industry.”
I think this would just come to personal preference (lots of people like diamond rings!). But you can get rings made with recycled diamonds, lab-grown diamonds (both of which are much more ethical), and a completely different stone altogether.
“I feel like I’m gonna be one of the very few people to think this, but I think the whole ‘be given away at the altar’ thing is weird. “
“When I get married, I’m walking myself down the aisle.”
Though, I think there’s a difference between walking the aisle with your father/relative/friend, and being “given away.” Or at least, there should be.
“Rehearsal dinners and all the pre-wedding events are [expletive].”
“They are unnecessary money spent. If you need to rehearse getting married, then you’ve complicated your damn ceremony. Get engaged, walk up to your fiancé/fiancée, say ‘I do,’ eat and end the day.”
“The bride being expected to wear white.”
“I’ve told people I don’t want a white wedding dress when and if I get married and you wouldn’t believe the looks of disbelief and horror I’ve gotten in return.”
There are plenty of beautiful beige/blush, black, and red wedding dresses out there. Wear what you want!
“Having only girls on the bride’s wedding party and only males on the grooms side.”
Another user shared her story: “A good friend of mine asked me to be one of his groomsmen when he got married. I’m a girl. I was super honored that he asked me to be part of his wedding and I rocked a tux.”
“Apparently there is a weird tradition that it’s bad luck for the bride to walk down the aisle at the rehearsal and some other girl/woman is supposed to walk down and stand with the groom.”
“My wife said ‘screw that’ and walked herself. Why would she want to sit and watch some other girl our age stand up there with me and the preacher the day before the wedding?”
“Sitting on the side of the bride or groom.”
“I think think tradition is dumb since a wedding is a way to bring families and friends together.”
The way that, like, half of wedding traditions miss the point of a wedding…
“Color matching outfits for the attendants.”
“Those dresses are always ugly and can never be worn outside the wedding.
“When I got married, I chose an easy color scheme and told my bride maid and maid of honor to match it with whatever they had. They looked lovely.”
“Everything has to be perfect or it’s unacceptable.”
“I work in a print shop, and I had a customer ask me to redo a larger banner because it had a crease on the corner.
“Had another one complain that her invitations had the wrong color of purple for the <1 cm heart on the front. Spent an hour fixing that."
“Expecting your friends to spend thousands of dollars on you with stupid destination bachelor parties, dress/tux rentals, hotels, miscellaneous [expletive].”
It’s bad enough spending tens of thousands of dollars on your own wedding, but expecting your loved ones to shill out thousands of dollars for “destination” anything is almost criminal.
“Bachelor parties at strip clubs/ Vegas hotel rooms with a private stripper.”
“Your last hoorah was before you started dating her, not the night before you get married. Stop acting like being faithful is some kind of funeral.”
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“Removing the garter, the following garter toss, and application on another woman. That [expletive] is just weird.”
Another user added, “The garter is definitely the stranger of the two tosses but the bouquet toss is also kind of weird and outdated when you think about it. My wife and I omitted both from our wedding.”
“I’ve been a bridesmaid in 3 weddings. In all of them, I had to ‘pair up’ with a groomsman, who I was expected to flirt with and ‘act like a couple’ with.”
“This was usually for photos, but also for walking down the aisle. In all three cases, I didn’t know the groomsmen and didn’t appreciate the implication that we were a couple just because we had to walk together down the aisle.”
“The over the top spending in general. I’m now divorced; however, when I got married… I was excited to BE married… I wasn’t excited to GET married.”
“I think there’s too much of an emphasis on rings, gowns, and impressing all of your guests. I walked into the bridal shop, tried on ONE dress, and said ‘Ok, good to go!’ I believe it was maybe $250. We ordered our rings off of Amazon for probably $50-$75 each, at the most.”
