The Changing Landscape of Weddings

This doesn't really have anything to do with photography, but I've been thinking about how much weddings have changed over the past 10-20 years. I'm not high volume and I'm at the lower end of middle-market so maybe my experiences are skewed, but I thought I'd share these observations nonetheless:

- No one gets married in a church anymore. Probably 20% of my weddings involve a church. And even then, only a few of those times does the couple have an actual relationship with that church. Ceremonies are outside in parks or on beaches, or most commonly at their banquet hall.

- Likewise, though the couple wants to be married by someone with religious credentials, religion rarely factors in to their actual ceremony other than maybe a blessing or two. I'd guess that 75% of all the ceremonies I see are over in less than 15 minutes.

- No one hires a limo anymore. I guess if you don't need to go from the church to the reception, why bother with a limo?

- Fewer people throw a bouquet and even fewer throw a garter. I'd say only about half toss the bouquet, maybe a quarter the garter.

- People race down the aisle now, even the bride. Remember step-pause-step-pause?

- Live music is played only rarely during the ceremony and even more rarely at a reception.

- No one throws rice, or birdseed, or blows bubbles at the end of the ceremony.

- Receiving lines have gone away. The wedding is over and then people just go where they go.

I'm not saying that any of these changes are for the better or worse; I just happened to take note of them during last weekend's wedding and thought I'd tap them out here.

Funny you say this, and of course there are receptions, but the last wedding I shot had almost every one of these things, except it wasnt in a church.

as a future groom... we've been planning our wedding for this coming winter and we are doing about everything on your list there.
except she will probably not race down the "aisle" and we will probably toss bouquet/garter.
i put aisle in quotes because there won't really even be one

No church, no limo, no rice/bubbles, God i hope no recieving line, no live music

and maybe we'll even have a cocktail hour before the ceremony.

While all of those things were included into our wedding, (except the church) I think back on all the weddings I've been to and I think you're right. I do see cost and age having something to do with it in my anecdotal memory survey though.

I'm sure a lot of this is cost. Some of it is trading in the traditional for what I'll call the trendy. And some of it is for the better, some is just a shame.

Peacefield wrote in post #9943790
I'm sure a lot of this is cost. Some of it is trading in the traditional for what I'll call the trendy. And some of it is for the better, some is just a shame.

some of it is a shame, sure, some of it may be a little trendy.

but getting rid of some of the traditional bull* can be more fun sometimes too. for everyone, you know?

Our wedding, double digit years ago, had church, reception site, live music at church, bubbles, but no receiving line.
We wandered the reception after we ate, while guests ate and introduced ourselves to the guests. Up close views of our clothing, and a bit of happy couple attention for every guest.

Most of the recent weddings I've attended, have no receiving lines, but no intros to close and extended family/ guests either. I know I saw several siblings, etc, but I had to intro myself to those I could catch.

Cakes have really changed, as have flowers. Anything goes, and it's worth the effort as a guest to admire the differences.

I attended one wedding as a teen where the cake wasn't cut until early the next morning.
Lots of leftover cake and irked family because folks gave up and went home to sleep.

As a guest, the trend away from venue-required wedding planners is very obvious even to guests.
The wedding party and guests need to be herded and wedding planners fill in.

I suspect the trends are from distant family, massive divorce and remarriage numbers, and a desire to break the old rules in addition to budgets tightened many times. More couples cover their own wedding costs now than twenty years ago.

One positive: as extended family I can now choose the image/s I want from online galleries rather than depending on a closer family member to think of me when photo ordering time appears.

photogs_spouse wrote in post #9944696
More couples cover their own wedding costs now than twenty years ago.

That's the other thing I'm seeing. No one talks about it to me as their photographer, but it seems pretty clear that many of these couples are paying for much if not all of their own wedding themselves.

I'm at lower end too. For my clientele, here is what I see:

About 20-30% of the get married in a church, while the rest get married in resort chapels, golf resorts or parks. A few may get married inside a reception hall or in their suite.

Can't tell about the religion - I see a fair amount of Catholic weddings, and a few east indian weddings, along with a majority of christian weddings.

Limos are extremely common here: Most couples/wedding parties get toted around in limos of some sort or shuttles.

Garter and bouquet tosses are about 85% of the time for me.

They walk at a fair pace down the aisle most of the time. Some faster, some slower, but not usually extremely slow with any stop-and-go pattern.

I see live music for about 20% of ceremonies and receptions.

Bubbles may get used after the ceremony, and rice on rare occasion - about 5-10% of the time.

Don't know about receiving lines. Formals often follow the ceremony, and then the grand entrance begins. Grand entrance is done about 85% of the time for me.

YMMV.

I would say most of mine are the exact opposite of the OP's.

* Majority of my weddings still take place in church, prob's about 75%

95% of the time there's special transport of some kind, whether its a bentley, roller, other vintage car, double decker bus, tractor & trailer VW camera van or something else quirky.

* Majority of our brides toss the bouquet, or a bridesmaids bouquet .... very few do the garter thing as its not really a UK tradition.

* Most of ours are fairly slow down the aisle, the music/organ helps the timing.

* Organ or some sort of solo music and or hymns are normal as part of the ceremony, organ or solo music singer during register signing

* In 70+ weddings I can only recall about 3 that didn't have a confetti.

* Receiving lines are thankfully on the decline, most boring photo op part of the day ... one of our toughest weddings was 250 guests and a bride that wanted to speak to everyone and 11 other other people in the receiving line .... 2 hours of receiving line isn't good!

I'm in Australia, and I'll chime in:

-Still lots of church weddings. 50%, maybe.
-Weddings not in a church almost never have a religious officiant. 99.9% civil celebrants.
-almost every wedding has a limo of some sort.
-LIke the OP, Bouquet toss is quite rare, garter toss even more rare.
-Some race up the aisle, some causally stroll, some to the beat of the music. No real trends.
-Still a lot of live music, both at the ceremony and/or the reception. 75%, at least.
-100% of couples throw confetti, birdseed or blow bubbles. I have never been to a wedding or photographed one without these things.
-receiving lines are rare, but there is always a mass of congratulations afterwards. Can be quite chaotic.

Just my experience here.

Mostly traditional weddings here with all the usual trappings. Things haven't changed much in the past 25 years except there are more mixed religious marriages and of course more mixed race marriages as well.

I haven't really noticed if current finances have impacted weddings because most have always been frugal affairs.

Everyone will be different based on culture and geography but the social tides have indeed changed.

Not sure if this was more of an ethnic thing than general tradition (I'm polish) but when is the last time you saw a bridal dance at a wedding!? I think there is a shift from the routine because people want to make their day everything "they" want it to be. The traditional view of "well, that's just how a wedding is done." has gone to the way-side.

My wife and I had a more traditional reception (minus the live band - that was a cost issue, live bands are expensive!) garder toss, bouquet toss, first dances, cake cutting and bridal dance, but our ceremony was much like the OP claimed. Outdoors, married by a non-denominational minister, no limo, no live ceremonial music and no receiving line. Yet we feel our day was perfect! And I think that's what people are going for. I find it more and more common that at nearly every wedding we shoot there's something that I say, "hrm, never saw that before." Thich I think it cool.

I'm inclined to agree that the "traditional" wedding is becoming less common, at least among those who aren't getting married for the first time...

When my wife and I were married (her second, my third) we booked a meeting room at the local zoo (she works there), bought our food at COSTCO, didn't have a maid of honor or best man, no music and the photography was done by a co-worker of mine. We had another friend do the video and the only reason we had a ring bearer was because we couldn't say no to my wife's 6-year old nephew who wanted to do it.

hmmmm for my area, most of my weddings are in churches or have a religious component of some kind. And they still do all the traditional stuff still except for confetti; that is almost never done here. live music is half and half. I guess my experiences are kinda the opposite.