We Are Family

What would weddings be without family? Or family without traditions? Deciding which family traditions to incorporate into your wedding can be a simple task or quite complicated depending upon what your family values.

Traditions for many families are based on culture, religion, or other related origins. I’ve seen brides of Irish descent who carry a bouquet with a horseshoe incorporated for good luck. At the wedding of a high school friend–a descendant of Japanese immigrants–the mother of the bride wore a kimono, just as her mother had done at her own wedding and her mother’s mother had done before. It was a beautiful tradition made more beautiful by the fact that the family had lived in the states since the 1880s.

The cake charm pull is a popular tradition at weddings in the south. This tradition dates back to Victorian times and, over a hundred years later, not much has changed about it since. Tiny charms attached to ribbons are placed under a cake at the reception, where bridesmaids and friends (and often children and other family members) are invited to come up for the “cake pull.” Each person pulls a ribbon and the charm attached at the other end has a special meaning, like a fortune telling of sorts, including finding a new love, getting married, having a baby, being lucky in life, or having a new adventure.

If your family doesn’t have a tradition, it doesn’t mean you can’t make one up or incorporate something from other weddings into your own nuptials. My family kidnaps the bride at the reception and ransoms her return. As silly as it may sound, when “We Are Family” by Sister Sledge starts playing, the bride’s brother(s) or male cousins and family members know it’s time to snatch the bride and carry her off. Then the groom and his groomsmen have to dance and embarrass themselves in exchange for her return. Before you know it the bridesmaids, parents, and even Grandma get in on the silly action. (It’s my favorite part of any family affair when a bunch of Charneys attempt to breakdance.)

I have a friend, Christine, who had a very casual, low-stress wedding. She and her groom decided they didn’t want to spend a lot of time working on planning a wedding, so they got their family members involved. “If any aspect of the wedding was particularly important for a family member, we put them in charge,” she wrote to me in a recent email.

Christine’s new husband is Czech and his sister suggested the couple incorporate some Czech traditions into the event. “Some of these were real Czech traditions, such as breaking a plate together (not just Jewish – central European!),” she told me.

“We were supposed to have some herb (I forget which one) pinned to us, but North Dakota is not the best place to get fresh herbs, so we decided on sage brush. We sent my brother off to help my sister-in-law identify sage brush. She ended up pinning some unknown plant onto all of the guests. But then she just made a bunch of stuff up and make us do it, like Ondrej having to carry me through a sheet with a heart cut out of it, eating through a piece of cake to each other, and sawing through a log together.”

Silly? Yes. Fun for the whole family? Absolutely.

No traditions and no family members who want to invent some? That doesn’t stop a lot of modern girls. Take Jessica, for example, who wants a prom dress at her wedding. Her mom’s wedding dress was actually a prom dress she bought on sale.

“I plan on doing something similar,” she tells me. “I’m a simple girl and don’t need anything super fancy.” Or Taylor, who says she wishes her family had traditions but is willing to invent her own. “Being a short-haired girl, I think when I get engaged I will grow my hair out and then have my partner cut it off at the ceremony,” she says.

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