Celebrating Your Story: Incorporating Tradition into Your Wedding

As one of the most special events in your life, your wedding is the time to tell you and your future spouse’s love story. This special day should communicate to your guests your journey a couple. As such, incorporating your culture, background, and ethnicity into the event is a great way to celebrate your story. Here is how you can do it:

Ceremony

Every culture has its own unique features – poems, vows, quotes, and the like – that you can incorporate into your wedding. You can go all-out and conduct a full-on ceremony based on your culture or do it more subtly and add only a few parts of the traditional ceremony to your own wedding. In Malay wedding services, for example, henna painting on the bride and groom’s fingers is done to signify their status as a new couple.

Attire

When you think of wedding attires, white dresses and tuxedos would inadvertently pop into mind. But of course, different cultures would have different traditions. Often more colourful and complex than the Western style, you and your spouse can opt to wear traditional wedding attires. Korean weddings, for example, involve wearing colourful hanboks. If you and your partner have different backgrounds but wish to honour both, you can choose to change into the other set of traditional attires come reception time.

Music and Dance

A fun way to encourage your guests to experience your tradition is by incorporating music and dance rooted in your heritage. Indian weddings are known for their beautiful dances, whereas doing the jig is a must for every Irish wedding. If you are not familiar with your traditional dances, you can join dance classes or ask someone from your family to teach you. It can likewise be a great bonding experience for you as a couple.