The wedding reception is a great occasion for everyone involved. The bride and groom get to celebrate their new bond of marriage. Meanwhile their guests and family members get to mingle with each other and the bride and groom as well. This is what people expect to have occur at a wedding reception. The thing is wedding receptions change of the years and what people view as traditions for receptions change as well. Modern wedding receptions include many alterations of what people who attended weddings in the past might have considered “standards” for the reception.
Modern Changes In Wedding Reception Traditions
Of course after the wedding comes the wedding reception. It has become more common for the bride and groom to try to choose a location where both the wedding ceremony and reception can occur to limit transportation logistics and time for both their guests and the bridal party. It has been a long time tradition for weddings to have a “head table” where the bride and groom sat with the wedding party. In recent years though couples have trended away from this and instead have a “sweetheart table” for the bride and groom only. This allows the rest of the wedding party to sit with their families and friends. By using the sweetheart table, it makes seating assignments much easier. No longer do you have to worry about the date of a member of the bridal party being sat with a bunch of people they don’t know, or having situations where family members of the bridal party members are left sitting with people they are unfamiliar with. Of course at a wedding everyone socializes and gets to know each other, but this just creates a much more comfortable situation for everyone.
Speaking of the bridal party, another tradition that is slowly disappearing is the bridal party dance after the first dance for the newly married couple. This was always something that could be a bit awkward because many times members of the bridal party were paired with people they did not know (or in extreme cases did not get along with), and the dance was awkward for them. Obviously the bridal party got along to make the event special for the bride and groom, but now this dance has been eliminated at many weddings. Instead after the first dance, usually the bride dances with her father (or other choice depending on the situation) and the groom dances with his mother. After that the disc jockey announces that “the bride and groom would like their friends and family to join them on the dance floor”.
One tradition is still usually carried out at most weddings, but not always. This is the bouquet toss and the garter throw. These two parts of the tradition in general happen at most weddings still, but some couples have ended the tradition of the gentleman who caught the garter placing it on the female who caught the bouquet. In general this is done to avoid awkward situations, and also because there’s always a chance one of the people that caught the bouquet or garter is younger than would be appropriate to participate in this tradition. Other traditions that some couples decide to continue and others decide to skip include the traditional wedding songs such as “the chicken dance”, “the electric slide” and others.
One final wedding tradition that seems to have disappeared at many weddings is the “money dance”, this is where the gentlemen pay $1 or a donation of their choice to dance with the bride for a short period of time and the females do the same with the groom. Many couples feel awkward these days with this dance as they feel they are begging for money and have removed it from their reception.
A wedding reception is a time to celebrate for the bride and groom with their friends and family. How they celebrate should be left up to the bride and groom. Remember it’s their special day. As a guest you should not expect every reception to be alike. Afterall, isn’t it nice to have a unique memory about your friend or family member’s wedding reception?
