Hello all, I hope everyone is staying safe, sane, and wishing good health to you and your family at this strange and terrifying time. Inspired by the heart break of many people not able to be with their mum’s this Mother’s Day, I thought I’d write a post on ways to include your mum in your wedding.
Most couples I work with tend not to follow traditions too closely, but instead just use them as a bit of structure in their day for some of the fun things they still might like to do, e.g. cutting of the cake. However, since most of the traditional aspects of a wedding day seem to be quite patriarchal, I’m glad a lot of my couples do their own thing around them!
Since mum’s don’t really seem to get a look in on the traditional aspects of a wedding, here’s some ways you could include your mum in your day, which you can adapt to suit yourself and how traditional (or not) you might like to keep things!
Ceremony
- Have your mum walk you down the aisle
- Have both your parents walk you down the aisle
- Have your mum say a reading
- Have your mums as ring bearers
- Have an all-female cast for your official witnesses – you only need two witnesses (as a minimum), so it’s nice if this is both mums, or both mums and the sisters/‘maids
Reception & Speeches
- Have your mum announce you into your reception venue as a new married couple/Mr & Mrs/Mrs & Mrs/Mr & Mr
- Or have your mum announce you into dinner for your wedding breakfast
- -However I would strongly recommend only one of these announcements, your mum should not be your MC… it hasn’t worked out so well at past weddings I’ve done!
- Have your mum do a welcome speech
- Or simply just a toast
- At one of my past weddings, the groom’s maternal heritage was Polish so the venue organised vodka shots for all the guests for the MOG’s toast!
- Of course a stand alone speech is a good shout too!
Party
- Have your mum introduce and do a countdown for the cutting of the cake
- At an Indian fusion wedding I did a few years ago, once the couple had cut the cake, the bride and groom fed their father and mother in law (respectively) a piece of the cake, then that person fed the other mother and father in law; so it was a chain from the bride and groom down each opposite side of the family, and opposite back again! It was a really nice symbolisation that they were all part of one big family now!
- In the US it’s traditional to kick off your party and first dance, with a father/daughter – mother/son dance, then each partner passes the other to each other, so the couple can then start their first dance together as a married couple. But you could organise this any way you like. I’ve seen this happening more and more over here in the UK.
The main thing to remember though is… there are no rules! You can do exactly whatever you would like! It’s your day, your way, so don’t be afraid to mix things up!
The only rule is the legal part, but even then, you only have to sign your name; you don’t even have to have rings if you don’t want. 😊
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