wedding ceremony ideas

My mom did not raise us with a lot of tradition. We were pretty laid back about religious matters, as well as secular holidays. We would have a turkey on Thanksgiving. We would have ham on Christmas and exchange gifts. We would party and stay up late on New Year's Eve. That was it. It's strange, but until I was getting married, she seemed to have no religion. That's when things changed.

You see, we had very different ideas for a wedding ceremony. For me, religion was never an important part of my life, but love and community were. My wedding ceremony idea centered around the more secular aspects of the marriage. We would exchanged our wedding vows in the most beautiful way possible. We would not be witnessed by a clergy, but simply by our friends. We thought that these unique wedding ceremony ideas would meet with her approval as well. How wrong we were.

At first, it started off in a friendly way. She suggested a few changes in our wedding ceremony ideas. Instead of having it in the middle of the forest, for example, how about having it in the church? When I said no, she seemed to be alright with it at first. Soon, however, she brought it up again. She could not stand us having a wedding ceremony without a religious figure there to officiate. She told me that it was because of her father. She said that he was not comfortable with contemporary wedding ceremony ideas. She begged and pleaded with me not to go through with it, and she said that it would offend him. It almost made me burst into tears. I thought that she would want me to have my wedding ceremony in the way that was most meaningful to me. When she insisted on her antiquated wedding ceremony ideas, it was almost too much to handle.

Even our wedding ceremony music ideas were met with complaints from her. You see, we met each other in a choir. We thought that it would be nice to play the first song that we sang together instead of the traditional bridal march. We assumed that no one would mind. It was, after all, a beautiful piece of classical music. In the end, however, this caused as much trouble as any of our other wedding ceremony ideas. I do not know if she was simply reluctant to let me go, but for whatever reason, she was being dreadfully stubborn.