Alternatives to Standard Wedding Traditions?

We aren’t doing a grand send off. Instead, we will be heading to an after party with any WP and guests who want to keep the celebration going. We also won’t be doing the bouquet and garter toss. We won’t be replacing this with anything though- we just feel it’s an outdated tradition.

Instead of cake we are having a donut sundae bar as my FH doesn't particularly like cake

Skipping the DJ and having a playlist since we aren't into dancing and our families aren't either - been to too many weddings with an empty dance floor - will have yard games and maybe will have some games on the tables (like shower games, or something of that nature)

We aren't having bouquet or garter toss and will not be replacing it

Not doing old/new/borrowed/blue and not replacing it

I'm not sure if I'm wearing a veil or not yet, if not will just be wearing some decorative hair piece in its place

For our big wedding we are having a smaller cake just for my husband and I, but we will also be having cupcakes, donuts, candy bar etc for our guests. We don't plan on having a garter toss either.

For our minimony we didn't have a DJ, we used a playlist instead and we also didn't do a garter toss. And we completely forgot about cutting the cake lmao we ended up bringing a whole cake back home because we were too busy drinking and partying.

We're having a smaller 2 tier cake for just us, but we'll have cookies for guests. No guest book! Instead, we're putting the place cards on a string attached to a frame and guests will take a polaroid photo of themselves and swap it out with the place card. After the wedding, we plan on spending a Saturday putting them in an album!

We won't be having a flower girl or ring bearer. Just don't see a point in them lol. I'll be walking myself down the aisle. We won't be announcing the cake cutting.

I walked myself down the aisle

We're doing a really small chocolate cake for FH and then cookies for everyone else. We're thinking about having my brother's GF paint a galaxy canvas to hang behind us at the ceremony and then have everyone sign it as the guest book.

Depending on how our venue feels about it and if we can find someone to transport them home we're thinking about have our dogs be the ring bearer/flower girl and having my (our) daughter walk them down the aisle.

We won't be doing any parent dances and my son is walking me down the aisle instead of my father.

Traditions change so much—depending on who you ask, a DJ is already not traditional (live music is)! Believe me, that was a dramatic conversation with my family.


We will have a small cake to cut but don’t plan on making a big deal of it—will probably be right after dinner. Mix of desserts for everyone else. No bouquet toss or garter toss (both very ick to us!). For the ceremony, we plan on either walking down together or both having both our parents walk us. I’m not wearing a veil, and technically my dress isn’t white (although quite close!).