On Being a No Program Bride

As you may or may not recall, even though I planned my wedding from start to finish, I really didn't have a lot of real wedding experience. In fact, not counting my own, I've still only attended two weddings in my adult life. At the beginning of planning I felt a bit lost, but I found that in some ways it was a blessing. I think it may have relieved some stress from feeling obligated to participate in or do certain things simply out of tradition. In some ways, like our chapel wedding ceremony, we stayed very traditional, but in others we said "tradition shmadition."

Although I loved our paper elements like our STDs and invitations and was obsessed with monogramming anything that didn't move, I was completely uninterested in the idea of creating a wedding ceremony program. I guess I saw it more as a "nice to have" rather than a "need to have." We weren't having a super-long ceremony or participating in any special or unique ceremony elements that needed explaining. I suppose it would have been a nice place to call out and give thanks to the wedding party, but we had other things planned for them at the reception. In the end, I just said "to hell with it" and skipped them all together.

However in effort to make sure all our guests still made it to the reception, I ended up making a simple map to distribute a la Ballet Flat instead. I knew directions couldn't be skipped since most of our guests were unfamiliar with the Williamsburg area, but eliminating the task of programs from my to-do list certainly made for less stress.

Photo by Valerie Demo

Any other "no program brides" out there?