Should You Have a Themed Wedding?

When my oldest daughter got married, somebody asked her what the wedding theme would be.

"Wedding," she said. "I'm having a wedding-themed wedding." The person was like, "Oh? Weird."

Theme weddings are a thing these days. I'm not talking about whether your bridesmaids wear pink or blue; I'm not talking about whether your centerpieces are candles or candy. I'm talking about full on costume parties  like the Halloween theme one where the bride went as the Bride of Frankenstein. I met the lady. This is a true story.

According to Brides.com, theme weddings are for the off-beat bride, one who doesn't like to take the "normal" route. Yeah but now they're the trend so that makes them kind of the norm, like tattoos.

I once overheard two high school girls talking about tattoos and how this dumb girl got one to try to be cool. She got flowers or something. "Oh, that's not a real tattoo," these girls were saying. My forty-five year old grandmother's got flowers. If you want to be considered alternative, you gotta do better than flowers, Sister. It made me wonder what you had to do to prove you were tough, expose a bone?

Anyway, my guess about the theme wedding trend is that most people are bored.

They are already living together or staying over at each other's houses before getting married, so the wedding is not a rite of passage. I remember thinking when my neighbors got all dressed for their wedding in their shared house in the morning and then returned to it at the end of the day, what's different? And I think a lot of brides and grooms are subconsciously thinking the same thing.

Since the lifestyle is about the same after the wedding as before, what's different? The wedding itself. It is a chance to throw a big party in which the red carpet belongs entirely to you. By those standards, a wedding-themed wedding is about as unique as a flower tattoo.

Well, I'll tell you. If you really want to be a unique bride and groom, try having a Catholic wedding. To a passerby, you may look like a standard cake topper but inside you'll have something really unique—grace.

The most joyful and the most fun.

I've been to lots of weddings. Who hasn't? But the ones I've been to where I know that the bride and groom truly intend to enter into a sacramental covenant, truly mean every word of their vows—vows, not warm sentiments they made up in an attempt to be unique—those weddings are the most joyful and the most fun.

You feel privileged as a guest to witness the beginning of a new family, whose creator and support is God himself.

There is nothing costume party about those weddings but there is still lots of room for uniqueness—your personality, your family, your friends, your tastes, your quirks, and all the things that you love best get to shine.

At our most recent family wedding, our fourth daughter and her groom asked her two younger sisters and her brother to do a traditional Ukrainian presentation of bread, wine, and salt at the wedding.

This was to honor her many years of attending a Ukrainian Catholic parish. So when it was time for the traditional toasts, the three kids took the stage. The girls wore their handcrafted floral headpieces with long flowing ribbons, which symbolize a long flowing dowry.

First the kids presented the bride and groom with bread for abundance, salt for bitterness, and wine for merriment, things symbolizing what every married couple will experience.

Then they resumed their places and danced a traditional dance which they had choreographed just for the wedding. Let me tell you, it got the party off to a roaring start.

There were so many other personal touches to the day—our family sang polyphony at the Latin Mass; the groom's brother and bride's friend played the guitar and violin for the first dance; the wine on the tables was made by the bride's brother-in-law (the groom from the wedding-themed wedding I mentioned above).

There was no need to walk up the aisle wearing stilts or doing flips or swimming like a mermaid just to be different. A Catholic wedding automatically makes you different.

Your guests are going to know it too.

A Catholic wedding is an occasion of evangelization. You invite your family, friends, neighbors, and co-workers. Some of them are fellow Catholics; some of them are not. This is your big chance to pray with them, a chance that may never come again. What do you want them to get out of it?

How about getting to witness a sacrament? A wedding is not just about the bride and groom. It's about God who ordains, blesses, and protects the married couple. Everything about the wedding should lift the guests' spirits to Him.

So if you really want an alternative wedding, make it a Catholic wedding with all the beauty and richness which a life lived in the faith will bring.

Or if you'd rather be a mermaid on your big day, you could always go to your next Halloween party dressed as a bride.