Weddings are full of traditions, from what you wear to what is said. But not all traditions last forever, with some eventually tipping from essential to irrelevant. Few newlywed couples today, for instance, will be pelted with rice as they leave the ceremony. As such, the next chapter of our Big Survey on Weddings looks at which traditions Britons feel should be kept up and which are no longer needed.
Many remaining wedding traditions remain popular, with this particularly the case for the groom having a best man and the newlyweds taking the first dance at the reception. Around eight in ten Britons (78-81%) believe these traditions should be preserved, with only small fractions (6-10%) hoping to see them dropped.
Both the best man’s speech and the bride throwing her bouquet at the end of the reception are also crowd pleasers, with 66-71% of the public believing couples should keep up the customs for years to come, with roughly six in ten Britons (58-62%) likewise supporting the father of the bride giving her away and the couple not seeing each other on the morning of the ceremony.
Half of Britons (51%) also think it’s worthwhile to preserve the tradition of the bride wearing white, roughly double the 25% who think it’s time to call quits on the tradition popularised by Queen Victoria.
More divisive is the groom asking their partner’s father for permission to get married, with Britons split 42% to 44% on whether prospective grooms should stick to this ritual. It’s only a similar 41% who think that brides should continue to take their husband’s surname, while the already disappearing tradition of giving out wedding favours to guests divides punters 33% to 38%.
What couples should, in the eyes of the public, be saying “I don’t” to are the bride promising to obey her husband and the less-observed custom of the bride’s family paying for the wedding, with more than seven in ten Britons (72-73%) feeling these traditions should be dropped, relative to only 17% and 9% respectively feeling they’re worth preserving.
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