Changing Times in the Wedding World

Marriage certificates and other changes in the wedding world

‘Come gather around people, wherever you roam
And admit that the waters around you have grown
And accept it that soon you’ll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’ ‘

That was Bob Dylan back in 1964. Well now, in 2018, fifty-four years after Dylan’s protest song, a key protocol of the marriage certificate might be about to change. And it’s not before time too!

Your marriage certificate

At the time of writing, marriage certificate documentation records only the names and occupations of the fathers of the newly-wed pair. Like they did it all on their own? Quite the opposite is true as we all know. As this 2018 article from Good Housekeeping points out, this out-dated protocol is a hangover from times past that viewed women’s occupations as non-existent or of no consequence. There has though been campaigning in Parliament to change this lamentable situation. About time too we say. This is the 21^st century after all!

Late in 2017, the Sunday Times reporte d that the proposal had been ‘signed off with a spokeswoman confirming existence of the desire to include mothers’ details. Further they’d also appear on civil partnership certificates. So here at Fabulous Functions UK we propose a toast to the equal recognition of mothers both brides and grooms on marriage certificates.

It’s a toss up

Changes to marriage certificate protocols aside, many brides these days are looking for different ways to do things.

Earlier this year, in tossing the wedding bouquet, we examined the reasons that lay behind the ages old tossing-of-the-bouquet tradition and suggested that you might want to throw away this particular tradition – a bastion of sexism and misogyny.

This is what one bride decided to do:

‘We asked all the married couples to come out on the dance floor. Then the DJ whittled it down to the couple together for the greatest number of years (40 years for the couple at our wedding) and we gave it to them. I saw it done at a wedding years ago, then it went to a couple married for 60 years, and it was such fun. People were a bit confused when we asked the married couples to come out on the floor, but then once they got what was happening they liked it. Also, it saved our single friends the embarrassment of the whole “traditional” ritual.’

But that’s not the only way in which couples are breaking with tradition and doing it their way in these changing times in the wedding world.

Grooms are having a Best Woman instead of a Best Man at their side. Meanwhile brides are having their mothers walk them up the aisle and inviting their grandmothers to be their chief bridesmaid. And why not? The traditional nuclear family has morphed into something much more fluid and that’s brought a blurring of traditional gender roles at weddings.

Feminism is playing its part in the shifting wedding landscape too. After all, as Lauren Bates, back in 2014, in her Guardian article ‘How to have a feminist wedding’ mooted: ‘… surely at least a small part of being a feminist means forging new paths through old traditions?

Traditions and customs

If you’ve been to a wedding recently where the couple broke the shackles of tradition – or you’re planning on doing that yourself we’d love to hear from you. You can find us on Facebook or on Instagram or drop us a line on: hello@fabulousfunctionsuk.com

Changing Times in the Wedding World