Handling All Those Wedding Family Traditions
Your camera-holding fairygodmother on turning pressure into personal memories
Nothing, and I mean nothing, turns up family pressure quite like a wedding. That beautiful ring on your finger has some magic way of bringing all the family weirdness out of the woodworks, and especially if your family’s the loud, wild, or complicated kind- it can be a big ol’ mess if you’re not careful.
As a bride-to-be you can just be overwhelmed as your well-meaning but sensitive mom begs you to ‘Wear my dress!” Or your favorite aunt or grandma suggests, “Oh, you should use your great aunt’s wedding rings!!” Or your dad reminds you, “We never have alcohol at Walker weddings.” And that’s just the surface- from events at a weddings to ceremonies to the activities to the ring exchange to the vows to the bridal party to what you wear to every single little detail of your wedding, it can become far, far too easy for a wedding to be about your family’s wishes and not about you and your relationship.
I’ve seen plenty of weddings where you can just feel that the bride and groom aren’t doing what they want, but what they thought everybody else wanted from them and that’s just not the day I want for you. I want your laughter in my lens to be genuine and honest, the capture that glow in your eyes and the sheer excitement and joy you two have together, not a forced grin or you all just going with the motions.
Wedding traditions can be soaked in history, sentiment, and richness. Traditions aren’t inherently bad, and even as our generation loves to throw out the old- sometimes the old, well-worn traditions have the most beautiful ring to them. Especially if you’re marrying into a new culture, or meshing two radically different cultures, bringing in family traditions can feel like a fitting way to celebrate your coming together.
But all the good stuff of tradition gets stifled under all that pressure, so take a deep breath. Traditions only carry what we bring to them. And if your wedding feels heavy, stifled and held back by the weight of tradition and expectation and never-ending family pressure, let’s take a step back.
At the end of that aisle, in the big photo you’ll hang by your bedside, and under that altar are you- and your partner-to-be. That’s all. No parents. No caretakers. No Aunt Bertha. No Great Uncle Louie who’s being huffy in the back. They may have supported you and loved you to this moment, but they are not the main characters. You and your partner are.
What you wear, how you look, what you do, who you pick for things, and how you design your wedding is ultimately up to you. No matter the traditions, opinions, or expectations of others- even if they feel loud, weighty, and scary in the moment. Remember, even if they judge you at the dinner table, that five seconds of judgment is nothing compared to wishing one of the biggest days of your life went differently.
Your wedding day should be about you and your partner. Traditions can bring richness and history to your wedding, but they shouldn’t bring pressure.



