We as humans have been celebrating the unity of two people in love for literal millennia. Over those thousands of years, different cultures and religions around the world influenced the institution of marriage until it became what it is today.
And while weddings are still common practice, there are a whole bunch of traditions that we could definitely do away with. Redditors shared the traditions that they absolutely hate.
"The pastor of one church asked those in attendance to 'please throw $20 bills instead to spare the sexton a huge clean-up job."
The average wedding costs around $20,000, but can set you back up to $30,000, depending on what state you live in. With that much money, you could do so many other, really cool things.
"Being a female person, I get invited to a lot of these, and they're all pretty much the same: sitting around eating finger sandwiches, tentatively sipping white wine, and watching the bride open boilerplate registry gifts and Bed Bath & Beyond gift cards for 3 hours. No thanks."
"I'd be pissed if my husband did that to me. Most women spend a lot of money for that perfect look on their wedding day and even if they don't, they spend a lot of time doing their own make up. I think it's very mean."
No one gets dressed and made up just to have cake smushed in their face.
"I mean, we eventually spent the $1200 in Target gift cards, but it would've been cool to spend it at other places as well."
Actually, it's really weird that you're kind of expected to give a couple a gift that you picked out of a list of things they're telling people to get them.
"I'm not marrying a child here. I'm marrying an adult who can make her own decisions."
In a perfect world, a couple's parents would have nothing to do with their marriage...
I think this would just come to personal preference (lots of people like diamond rings!). But you can get rings made with recycled diamonds, lab-grown diamonds (both of which are much more ethical), and a completely different stone altogether.
"When I get married, I'm walking myself down the aisle."
Though, I think there's a difference between walking the aisle with your father/relative/friend, and being "given away." Or at least, there should be.
"They are unnecessary money spent. If you need to rehearse getting married, then you've complicated your damn ceremony. Get engaged, walk up to your fiancé/fiancée, say 'I do,' eat and end the day."
"I've told people I don't want a white wedding dress when and if I get married and you wouldn't believe the looks of disbelief and horror I've gotten in return."
There are plenty of beautiful beige/blush, black, and red wedding dresses out there. Wear what you want!
Another user shared her story: "A good friend of mine asked me to be one of his groomsmen when he got married. I'm a girl. I was super honored that he asked me to be part of his wedding and I rocked a tux."
"My wife said 'screw that' and walked herself. Why would she want to sit and watch some other girl our age stand up there with me and the preacher the day before the wedding?"
"I think think tradition is dumb since a wedding is a way to bring families and friends together."
The way that, like, half of wedding traditions miss the point of a wedding...
"Those dresses are always ugly and can never be worn outside the wedding.
"When I got married, I chose an easy color scheme and told my bride maid and maid of honor to match it with whatever they had. They looked lovely."
"I work in a print shop, and I had a customer ask me to redo a larger banner because it had a crease on the corner.
"Had another one complain that her invitations had the wrong color of purple for the <1 cm heart on the front. Spent an hour fixing that."
It's bad enough spending tens of thousands of dollars on your own wedding, but expecting your loved ones to shill out thousands of dollars for "destination" anything is almost criminal.
"Your last hoorah was before you started dating her, not the night before you get married. Stop acting like being faithful is some kind of funeral."
Another user added, "The garter is definitely the stranger of the two tosses but the bouquet toss is also kind of weird and outdated when you think about it. My wife and I omitted both from our wedding."
"This was usually for photos, but also for walking down the aisle. In all three cases, I didn't know the groomsmen and didn't appreciate the implication that we were a couple just because we had to walk together down the aisle."
"I think there's too much of an emphasis on rings, gowns, and impressing all of your guests. I walked into the bridal shop, tried on ONE dress, and said 'Ok, good to go!' I believe it was maybe $250. We ordered our rings off of Amazon for probably $50-$75 each, at the most."
