Hi hello!

ICYMI, I got engaged in July 2019!! It was, to say the least, a whirlwind. My parents and little sisters flew out for it. He took me to a Nathaniel Rateliff concert, which is also where we had our first date, and he surprised me with backstage passes to meet the band after the concert.

We’re planning on having a two year engagement – largely because I don’t want to stretch myself thin with being there for my couples and trying to plan a wedding on top of that.

Although we’ve done very little planning when it comes to our wedding, we already know five things we don’t want to do at our wedding. Here they are:

1. We’re not having a flower girl or ring bearer.

   We love the kids in our family, and we love our friends’ kids, but we don’t really want to have to censor ourselves the day of our wedding. I want to listen to songs that might say “fuck” in them and not worry about my little cousins becoming corrupt at my wedding. We, of course, are having some children there for family photos, but we decided that having two more members of our wedding party would be more hassle than it’s worth. Ring bearers never really carry the rings anyway, so it feels more like an obligation, rather than something we want to do.

2. Garter toss? No thank you.

   I can’t even convey how much I do not want John up my skirt in front of our Mormon family members. Plus it feels like a bit of a one-sided tradition. The guy can go up the girl’s skirt in a rather sexual manner, but there’s no equal opposite. #feminism and all that, ya feel?

3. I’m not wearing a white dress.

   I can’t tell you what color I got for my dress just in case John reads this closely, but white feels so… not me. I also might switch from my colored dress to a white jumpsuit during the reception, but who knows! I just don’t want to feel locked into what everyone else is doing. And I definitely wanna be able to get diggity down, so pants are (for once) a better option than a skirt.

   **Side note: I’m also not spending a zillion dollars on my wedding attire. I’ll probably end up in Vans or Toms by the end of the night, or better yet, barefoot, so why would I spend $200 on a pair of heels I won’t be comfortable in?

4. We’re doing a first look.

   I know this is becoming common place now, but I still have people tell me they think it’s bad luck. I have a whole four pages in my client magazine that you get when you book with me that tells you exactly why not seeing each other before the wedding became a thing in the first place, why it’s outdated, and why I’m a big fan of them. I’ll write another blog post hitting the highlights on why I love them, and I’ll link it here once it’s finished!

5. We’re getting married on a Thursday.

   Saving the biggest one for last!! I’ve always been in love with the idea of having your dating anniversary and your wedding anniversary the same. So we talked about the possibility of doing that, and John, thankfully, accepts my crazy. So we’re getting married on our fifth anniversary, which happens to fall on a Thursday. The ceremony will be small – basically just family and close friends only. And then that night, we’ll have the grand ol’ reception. I preach to couples that they should do what’s important to them on their wedding day, and this is what’s important to me. So I may as well practice what I preach!

John and I aren’t traditional people. Weddings in and of themselves are traditional, so it would be impossible to have a non-traditional wedding. (wow did I say traditional enough during those two sentences?)

These are just the little ways we’re making ours more personal – more us.

What traditions are you skipping on your wedding day?

Tell me in the comments!