Pop Culture Versus Wedding Traditions

The tradition of two people getting married to signify their commitment to one another has been around for centuries upon centuries. But how people have carried out the significant elements in the wedding ceremony has evolved over time, just as “the complex ways in which the purposes and meanings of traditions are formed and reformed over time” (176). The highly valued ideals in pop culture of “individual choice” and “individual expression” have driven the latest changes of traditional weddings into “trendy” weddings, fueled by the concept that what reflects the couple’s identity is more important than the couple fitting into a set of standardized wedding traditions. For example, the couple in my family who got married on a dinner cruise ship, jumped into the water after the ceremony because they met each other while training for a long distance swim in the same waters where the dinner cruise ship traveled for the ceremony.

In a traditional wedding, where the ceremony is generally held in a church building of some kind (dependent on the couple’s religious heritage), with the appropriate clergy performing the ceremony; the appropriate religious music playing; and the appropriate scripture is quoted; the couple has resigned themselves to these traditional rituals so that they “feel connected to something larger than themselves” (177). This is a good thing for society in general, because it can serve to help the couple take their vows of commitment to each other more seriously. They recognize that they are participating in a long-standing, legally binding tradition, which they are publicly acknowledging in front of many witnesses. This type of ceremony can also serve to “reinforc[e] the notion that people seek out experiences that bind them together and promote a sense of identification with a group” (181). In this case, wedding traditions connect newly married people to the larger community of married people. This also includes a certain kind of societal acceptance and legitimacy assigned to the newly married couple. Now the couple can say they have been through the typical rigors of putting together a wedding, enduring all the requirements, and by doing so can immediately relate to every other married couple in their community. However, this also means that the couple has to forego what makes them unique as a couple (their joint identity) in order to fit into a prescribed set of wedding traditions.

This general distaste in pop culture to conform to tradition, has led to an increasing number of couples creating unique wedding ceremonies that reflect more of their own personal style and taste over ritual and tradition. For example, many couples choose to invite a smaller group of immediate family and close friends for a more personal feel, rather than the traditional crowd of friends from the past, all members of the family’s church, very extended family and friends of the couple’s parents (many of whom the bride and groom may have never even met). My parents had this type of church wedding, with a large crowd of about two hundred guests. They said their wedding ceremony seemed so surreal, and impersonal because there were so many people they did not know very well, or at all, that it made them even more nervous and sort of detached from the whole thing. This is the kind of thing that has led to the current trend of picking a travel destination or even local location, other than a church, which limits the guests to a more personal crowd of people who the couple truly wants to be involved as witnesses to this intimate occasion.

Picking a location or destination can also help the couple create a theme by which to center the wedding ceremony around. By creating a unique setting, whether a barbeque or picnic style, a tropical style, a country-club atmosphere, a beach theme, or a garden style (the options are endless, really), the couple can identify more with what makes their wedding ceremony reflective of their own unique identity. As an example, my cousin and his fiancé recently got married in an old renovated theater where her father worked as a teenager, and they even managed to incorporate elements of their favorite television show, the Simpsons, into their ceremony and vows. This made it very personal and unique to them – and rather entertaining to the guests! Taking the ceremony out of a church can also allow the couple to pick and choose elements that have the most meaning to them. It only makes sense that the whole thing will be more significant to a couple if they feel it encompasses elements of their identity. As an example, my cousin and his fiancé recently got married in an old renovated theater where her father worked as a teenager, and they even managed to incorporate elements of their favorite television show, The Simpsons, into their ceremony and vows. This made it very personal and unique to them – and rather entertaining to the guests!

However, there are some potential problems couples may encounter by veering away from certain wedding traditions. For one, if the couple gets too carried away with creating something new and unique to them, they may offend those who feel it is important to continue traditional “practices that have been handed down to us by past generations” (176). Some people don’t accept veering so far away from traditions that they participated in and still value, even though the traditions have changed for society in general. This happened to my sister when she opted to get married on the beach in Mazatlan, Mexico, with only about 25 family members in attendance. When our grandmother heard about what the destination wedding plans, she asked “is this going to be another non-Christian wedding?”. Then she told my mom that she wears ear plugs to the “non-Christian” weddings so she doesn’t have to get irritated by the music or vows that are so untraditional. There is also a risk of too much superficiality, and lack of appreciation for the seriousness of the commitment if the couple gets too caught up in the “theme” of the wedding instead of the “meaning” of it. Also, it could be perceived as a negative if more and more weddings exclude the religious nature of a marriage ceremony in favor of just a legal procedure. As far as the negative aspect to limiting the number of guests attending the ceremony, some people could feel offended that they were not part of the “chosen few” who were invited to the ceremony. This could lead to some family strife, or more distancing of friends than what the couple anticipated. But if the couple and their supporting family and friends consider these possibilities, they may be able to keep away some of the negatives of non-traditional trends, especially as it is more and more common to “expect the unexpected” when it comes to weddings.

In theory, this trend to personalize wedding ceremonies to the preferences of the engaged couple, could even have a long-term affect of fewer divorces due to the personal significance of the initial vows of commitment by the couple. After all, the divorce rates of the last several generations have shown those more traditional weddings, have not necessarily kept couples from divorcing. So why not try a new trend? Maybe the newly created wedding “tradition” will be to identify some of the couple’s uniqueness throughout the whole wedding process.