@thumper1 - I agree with you 100%. Many people may be spiritual, but are not necessarily religious so they don’t want to be married in a church. I can’t remember the last wedding we attended that was held in a church.
All of the weddings we have been to over the past few years have been beautiful and most of the ceremonies were extremely personal and officiated by a friend or family member which was a lovely touch.
My nephew and his bride used a rent-a-Rabbi last year for their Saratoga Springs venue wedding. The Rabbi does have her own pulpit in NYC but also has a wedding website and advertises on wedding websites like The Knot, so I suspect that’s a large part of her income. I think the entire ceremony was about a half hour and included all the traditional Jewish wedding elements. But all the personal elements came from participating friends and family; the Rabbi seemed to have stock speeches (like a politician’s stump speech).
I am not saying other weddings cannot be significant, beautiful. In our Catholic view, as a Sacrament of Marriage, it is in the Church to have Christ be present. Only Sacraments not in Church are due to distress or dying like anointing of the sick; Priest usually does Sacrament of Penance in the Church, but also can be done in distress as well.
At least the idea of marriage has not totally been discarded.
Often many young people don’t start thinking more about faith until they have a child. Some do get married after having a child - they want the marriage to be a decision between the two of them and not ‘rushed’ due to having a child together.
There is a big paradigm shift in our country with many of the traditional Protestant church membership is dwindling. Many young people also believe they can be ‘spiritual’ in their own way (and parents/families of bride/groom too). “We are not ‘church people’”.
Yes, many people want outdoor weddings and that is what is important to them. Marriage is important and that is why they are getting married.
I just was saying what went on with our household and DDs.
We are attending an outdoor wedding soon - and it is of a newly ordained ELCA Lutheran Minister. His sister’s outdoor wedding was celebrated by her brother and signed off by the ELCA Lutheran Minister dad (brother not ordained yet, but could do the service, just not the signing off of the Marriage License).
Our one niece had a wedding in a Methodist Church building with a hired Unitarian Minister; not one mention of God, prayer, or bible reference. I imagine they paid for the church use since they had the wedding in Milwaukee and they live in Chicago (money went further with Milwaukee wedding). Very secular vows with their own words. Actually had postponed the wedding to a year later due to Covid. Couple lived together after they were engaged.
This thread is moving in the wrong direction. Please take further discussion of religion to PM. Thanks for your understanding.
I wish all to have the marriage ceremony that is meaningful and joyful to their union.
Welp. Our son’s BF and his fiancée, both Army, will be having the military wedding at West Point we had anticipated before our son changed plans for a civilian ceremony in Georgia last year. Both our son and DIL are in the wedding, and we’ve been invited, though not sure we’ll attend. I think it would be hard for me to see him in uniform at the chapel and participating in the sword ceremony without my inner voice shouting, “What WERE you thinking, son?!!!”, especially as we found out recently from our DIL that she’s still really salty that he didn’t at least wear his uniform for their wedding. 
Maybe we’ll get some good pictures, though.
I thought this was a helpful answer (and helpful in considering attending a destination wedding. This was a dilemma of having attended a destination wedding (couple were friend of the parents of bride or groom), but not felt good about having done so:
Asking Eric: Destination wedding leaves old friends adrift - al.com
I have lots I want to say but won’t.
I will say that if you attend a destination wedding or a wedding that is local or not to you, the bride and groom have a lot to juggle. Don’t expect to spend much quality time with the bridal couple or the parents of the couple because they have other duties.
Exactly – I don’t think anyone should expect time with the closest family at a wedding, unless you are sitting with them. It’s just super hectic and there are lots of people to chat with!
S1’s wedding venue comes with an on site day of staff helper! We did not have that for S2 so I am looking forward to less troubleshooting.
My S hired a wedding planner. She seemed mostly to be doing “day of event” details. They were very happy with her and we could all relax and enjoy the festivities!
This shows the Jazz Band that DD1/SIL ‘splurged on’ (doesn’t show the singer in this photo) with their 2017 wedding. A college jazz band that had been pulled together. DD2 (maid of honor) actually played in two jazz bands with lead tenor sax (also standing). She participated in this last number, which was something she had played together often with him (and their solos) – she warmed up down the hall and looked at the song a few minutes before performing with the band. It was a memorable number - “In the Mood”, with the line of saxes coming out into the audience/dancing. One of the sax players said to DD2 “you are really good” and DD2’s reply “I use to be better”… she certainly beat his expectations.
At my nephew’s recent wedding, the bride and groom wanted the food to be exception. Her parents, who were paying, wanted the photos.
The food was great and I’m sure the photos OF HER FAMILY were wonderful, but there were no photos taken of our family as a group or even individually that I know of. I was very disappointed at how much of the bride and groom’s time was taken up by photos and retakes of photos. Going back up the aisle? Photo (of groom dipping the bride for a kiss). Oh, redo. Oh, redo. Bride and groom in a car (old convertible) but they had to leave the backyard reception to get those photos. In a golf cart, again not at the reception but in front of the house. Cutting the cake over and over and over. Really, they never even made it around to my table they were so busy taking pictures. I bet there are over 1000 pictures and not one of my side of the family or the groom’s father’s family. Twenty of the golf cart, but not one of my siblings or the cousins or even with groom’s half brother (his sister was in the wedding so photos of her).
I guess the one who pays the bill gets the photos they want.
My daughter is getting married in Oct and I told her she’d better fix this. Really, how hard it is to say “hey, can the Bride’s family stand over here for a few minutes? Okay, now the groom’s family. Okay, back to the party.” The photos don’t have to be posed or perfect, just take a few.
I was very adamant that there be a picture of our family that came to the wedding. It might have been my only demand.
That’s very unfortunate. I think that it is rude and I’m sorry that’s the only word I can think of at this early morning moment to not get pictures of the family. It seems like a basic request and that the photographer should have had that in their list of pictures to get.
At my son’s wedding, we got pictures of the extended family but I wish we had some of our nuclear family.
I have a photograph question.
When we took family pictures, all of ours included the groom as he’s our forever and always family. If in the future he’s not, I’m sure we won’t want pictures of our family with our daughter in her wedding dress.
The groom’s family took pictures without the bride and the sibling’s spouse.
Which did you do or prefer?
I say this because my sibling was hurt for 30 years that they were told to get out of the picture on their wedding day.
Just came back from a wedding this past weekend (good friends’ daughter). She’s a fitness influencer, he’s a former reality TV personality. They now promote their fitness brand together.
Not only were there a team of photographers but also videographers and content-creators (that’s a new one for me). At one point during the wedding, they introduced all of them on the dance floor, similar to how the leader of a band introduces the band members in the middle of a concert. The wedding was beautiful but I did see a lot of moments being staged and filmed for social media content. She had three outfit changes.
The last couple of weddings we’ve been to (millennial weddings), they have not done a cake-cutting ceremony. Pieces of cake just appear. I also haven’t seen the garter/bouquet-throwing lately. Makes me wonder if some wedding traditions are going by the wayside.
Wowser. I could see a random pic of one of the couple with their immediate family but not with their new spouse but I can’t imagine thinking ahead to “what ifs” of the marriage doesn’t make it! Would never ever dawn on me to think that in terms of photos.
Regarding the influencers, I would just say while odd to the average attendee and maybe a little annoying and like a show, I imagine a wedding is a top event to make $$, followers etc for the future of your account - which may be their main source of income.
Taking pics of just the groom’s family, with no bride seems a little odd to me. If they did that, I would have expected the same to be done for the bride and family, at least. Really, if they get divorced or something, will either of them want to see those pics?
At my son’s (very small) wedding they did pictures of the bride and groom PLUS our family that was present, and bride and groom PLUS bride’s family that was present. That’s what I’m used to seeing. I can understand keeping girlfriends/boyfriends out, but in their case bride’s brother’s gf was in the family pic.
I didn’t know this was a thing. Our son dipped his bride for a kiss on the way back down the aisle and it took my breath away. It’s one of the best wedding photos. Was it planned? 
It seemed so spontaneous. Now I have to ask.
I’m sympathizing with the (lack of) photos comments. We were only in five (of thousands?), only one “frameworthy.” My only sibling is still salty that his wife is not in any of the arranged photos, but that’s on him for not insisting. To be fair, though, she was not in the near area while photos were being taken, and the photographer seemed impatient waiting for all the grandparents to make it down all the steps to the photo site, so not very receptive to asking her to wait while you go find someone.
What would be the need for a picture without their spouse? That’s the family now. I’m not thinking of any what ifs.
I think it’s odd to have a family picture that excludes the new spouse. It may not mean anything, though - it’s probably more clueless than exclusionary.
When I got married, my mom didn’t want my brother’s GF in the family pictures because she worried about them breaking up. As it turned out, my brother married his wife and they are still together lo these 41+ years later … but my SIL & her H divorced and she has been remarried for 37 years. As a result , when D got married, everyone was included in family photos. We figured it was a snapshot in time. S and his longtime GF have broken up, but fate was on our side. She was on the end, and we were easily able to crop her out for the picture we have hanging in the hallway.
The biggest head scratcher of D’s wedding was my SIL complaining that the only professional shots of her were the family photos. Such an odd complaint!
