Her day?

I came across a post on another blog recently which was aimed at wedding photographers (particularly amateur ones) and made a big deal about the way in which the wedding day is HER day – that is, the bride’s – and everything should be done to make it immortalised by keeping a record of every detail, from wedding flowers to cake, from what the bridesmaids wore to every miniscule button and bow on the bride’s dress. In fact, if nothing else got photographed, make sure it was the dress!
And don’t forget the church (interior and out), and the ushers’ shoes and the bows on the ends of the pews, and the spot on the clergyman’s nose, and the organist’s fingernails, and…
Well, you name it. But do you notice who’s missing out of this line up? Yup, the groom. Somehow or other we’ve got into the mentality that the wedding day is for the bride and the bride alone. It’s something our ancestors would have laughed uproariously at. In fact, it’s likely that they would have focused more attention on the groom, who, after all, was taking on a woman as his bride.
Perhaps Bridezilla and the like are to blame. Or maybe they merely reflect the absurdity of the current approach. Whatever the case, it’s time we got back to seeing the bride and groom as equally important on this day – after all, both of them are committing themselves to each other – and to forget this modern nonsense about ‘her’ day.

Photo courtesy of Jeff Egnaczyk