How to have a Non Traditional Wedding and Get Away with it
Non traditional weddings are not for everyone and even if they are for you, chances are they won’t be what half your guests had in mind. For me, the more non traditional the better and the best weddings I have been to have been the ones a little off the curve with a little extra summin summin but I appreciate, it’s not what everyone wants and that’s a ok too. Whilst we did stick to some traditions, the general set up of our weekend was definitely far from your usual big white wedding but it seemed to go down well with most.
From a pub quiz to watching the rugby before the reception to our guests not actually seeing us get legally wed, we did not do things the ‘normal’ way and even now looking back I am so sure it was the right thing for us, it really was a blast - I am sure some friends and family probably thought we were nuts.
Prep people early - I think the earlier you can prepare people your day might be a bit unusual the better. Of course, it’s your day when all is said and done but I feel that parents and immediate family in particular sometimes need a bit of coaxing if they have imagine their son or daughters wedding day to go a certain direction. Our parents I have to say were well on board with it on the whole but I did warn them from the off it was going to be an unusual one.
Tune out all the noise - There is SO much noise when it comes to planning a wedding and it’s important to try and tune it out as best you can at any time but certainly when it comes to planning a non traditional bash. There’s a lot of opinions out there and a lot of ‘you SHOULD do this’ and ‘you MUST do that’ and actually, aside from the legal requirements you can kinda do the rest how you wanna do and not listen to anyone.
Sit down and work out what your most important things are - We did this quite early on and it really helped focus our minds to where our priorities lay. We wanted the ability to have somewhere for a whole weekend as people were travelling from a long way, we wanted accommodation so everyone could stay on site together, we wanted to do as much as we could to keep cost down and we wanted somewhere sympathetic to the fact we had our own cider business.
Force yourself to question every decision - Once you have the bare bones of what is the most important feature or features to you as a couple, keep questioning every single decision to see if it aligns with those principles. It is SO easy to think ‘I think we should do a traditional wedding ceremony’ because people expect it when all you want is to elope or to spend a fortune on a 5 tiered wedding cake for guests when actually you don’t even like puddings anyway. Keep reverting back to what you REALLY want and it’ll help you stick on track.
Consider the guest list carefully - Our non traditional wedding was almost decided for us because of the guest list but it then allowed me to embrace the unusual nature of it and roll with what we REALLY wanted. If there’s going to be someone who kicks off at what you’re doing do you really want them there anyway? If you’re going abroad for your day is it possible some people would feel obligated to come even if they couldn’t afford it? Are there some areas of the wedding some guests might be more into and maybe some areas they wouldn’t? We cut our guest list into ‘ceremony’, ‘everything’, ‘reception’ and ‘evening’ and filtered people into certain categories and that really worked well.
Be sensitive to people’s expectations - As much as you want to do things your own way and you should, after all you’re probably forking out for it and it is YOUR wedding after all, I think it’s nice to be sensitive to people’s expectations where you can. I made sure to ask if there were things our parents minded at certain intervals so they didn’t miss out on any parts of the wedding or the planning they would have liked to have done. I made sure my Mum didn’t mind not doing wedding dress shopping, I asked Jos’ Dad if he’d like to make a speech and I checked with my Dad if he wanted to give me away.
Find ways to guide people - This was a tip from our photographer and it really worked. He said people need a bit more direction if a wedding is a bit less than usual, if the ‘normal’ order of the day is not on the agenda. We never intended to do an ‘entrance’ or a first dance but they both helped to steer people to the next ‘stage’ of the day and I really recommend finding little hints like that to help guests.
Don’t tell anyone! Bit contrary to point number one but you could always just not tell people it’s non traditional and let them discover the joy for themselves on the day…….