Memoir

All the Wedding Traditions I Ignored

Being a modern bride often means upsetting tradition a little

Dr. Casey Lawrence
Modern Women
Published in
9 min readFeb 4, 2024

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Rhys & Casey’s Wedding © CassMariePhotography 2024

Modern weddings are a weird clash of cultural expectations that have accumulated over centuries. While wedding etiquette and meaningful family traditions are important to many people, some classic rules are outdated, needlessly expensive, or just sexist.

My husband and I threw the rulebook out the window when it came to our New Year’s wedding. Everything from the day we chose (a Monday and a holiday?!) to the dress to the music was chosen based on our taste without regard to ‘the right way’ to do things — and we’re happy that we did!

Here are all the wedding traditions we ignored or tweaked to suit us, and how it went:

“Here Comes the Bride”

The wedding march song, or “Here Comes the Bride,” is one of the most well-known pieces of music — second only to “Happy Birthday.” Many brides are choosing unique entry music now, though, and I mixed it up by walking down the aisle to my husband’s favourite Star Trek theme song— “Faith of the Heart (Where My Heart Will Take Me),” performed by Russell Watson and Dennis McCarthy.

We also forewent the use of Pachelbel’s Canon in D and instead chose a lovely violin

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Dr. Casey Lawrence
Modern Women

Canadian author of three LGBT YA novels. PhD from Trinity College Dublin. Check out my lists for stories by genre/type.