Wedding traditions are like sooo 1950s

Grooms you can now all relax. You are now no longer expected to go up to your future father-in-law filled with deep dread and exhibiting signs of an early heart attack just to ask for his permission to marry his daughter.

Likewise fathers, you should probably give up waiting for said nervous wreck of a man – or boy – for that rare occasion where you get to be the first in your family to be let in on big news.

Why? Such wedding tradition, if results from a poll are to be believed, is dying out.

Put more precisely, just one in six grooms ask for permission, compared to one in two in the 1960s.

Results of the poll conducted by researchers at The Wedding Inbox also found that other favourites such as tying tins to the back of the couple’s wedding car and the bride having her something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue have been halved in the past 50 years.

So is this true? Are wedding traditions dying out?
Now I’m not one for mushy tradition. I’m not keen on the tins and I definitely believe couples should write their own vows. Don’t even get me started on the love, honour and obey!

But when it comes to getting the father’s permission, I dearly hope that my match is that rare one in six.
You see my father is all about tradition, principles, discipline – especially when it comes to me and my sister. Thankfully my brother-in-law had the sense to ask Papa Ng.

It’s extremely important to me that my future knight in shining whatever involves my Dad because he is and will always be the most important man in my life. Whoever I end up with must accept second place. Now I know that is a lot to say and you may be thinking, ‘well you’ll think differently when you find your match.’

But honestly I can’t even entertain the idea of my Dad being anything but Number One. He is my teacher, my confidante, my hero, my leader. I’m first and foremost his daughter before I am somebody’s match.

And what about introducing new traditions? Here’s a few I say there should be more of:

• Brides and maid of honours giving speeches
• Couples writing their own vows
• Couples reading their vows only to each other before the official, legal binding ceremony.*

Hear me out on this last one. A wedding ceremony is never private between the couple because they are being watched by their friends and family. OK so they may want to share the day with their nearest and dearest. But if it were me, I would like to have a moment, my moment, with my groom and say my personal vows to just him – so that he can be the very first person to hear my words.

Now coming from me that is true love.

* The inspiration to this will be all explained in the next entry or two