Should I Keep or Lose Old Wedding Customs: How to Integrate Family Expectations into Wedding Plans

Wedding plans can cause many expectations from friends, family, and especially parents. Some people will expect a huge expensive wedding. Others will expect cultural traditions to be carried on. Others will expect financial expectations to be met. As the bride and groom, you can find that these expectations do not meet your beliefs, your style or your budget. There are several things you need to consider to decide if you should keep or lose old wedding customs.

Consider your finances. These will throw up your biggest limitations. If you do not have money to fly a whole bunch of relatives from another state or country, you will just have to push back on anyone who suggests you should. If the family thinks you should have a huge wedding, just as everyone else did, but you cannot afford it, you will have to break this tradition. If the family wants a small modest wedding and you want and can afford something enormous, then go for it.

Consider your beliefs. Do your spiritual beliefs no longer allow for family traditions? Are the old wedding customs too restrictive for your current beliefs and lifestyle? If your family wants a Greek Orthodox wedding and you no longer follow the faith, you are perfectly free to demand a civil union.

Consider the traditions of your new family. Now that you have considered how many of your families customs you want to keep or leave out, you must also consider which of your fiancé's customs you want to let in. In order to have the best start with your new family, you must honor them in some sort of way. Whether it is stepping on the glass, jumping over a broom, or having your wedding in their hometown of Italy, do your best to pay some homage to your new family and to tie the traditions of your two families together.

Remember that you are a couple first. While it is great to consider the needs and wants of your families and the customs that come along with that, you need to remember that you forming a new family. You need to begin to form your own traditions and customs and to remember who you are as a couple. Once you have those priorities straight, you will have an easier time dealing with the demands of others.