Happy Valentine's Day and other traditional things

It's popular to take a shot at tradition in the wedding industry - particularly on Valentine's Day.

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Every day in my inbox someone is talking about how they're having a non-traditional wedding, or they don't want traditions. Scroll through wedding Instagram for a few seconds and you'll find a wedding celebrant or photographer talking about which wedding traditions you can dump or forget. Jump on a Google search and you'll probably even find old blog posts of mine from the past 15 years about how traditions are so and so and that you should drop them all.

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Here's the thing though, traditions aren't bad, doing things only for the sake of tradition is bad.

Take today for example, it's the international day of love, Valentine's Day. I, the OG wedding rebel, the anti-traditionalist, was first in line at my local florist at 7:30am to buy roses not just for Britt, but for my mother-in-law who is visiting at the moment, plus my five and almost-three year old daughters, Luna and Goldie.

Sure it's tradition, and it's a real easy shot to take to rant about how commercialised Valentine's Day is, but it's a beautiful tradition to communicate to the people I love, that they are loved.

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Traditions aren't bad. Living a life without purpose, intention, and hope, that's not even bad, it's more so, sad.

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I hope you were blessed to be celebrated and loved today, and as your favourite marriage celebrant, let me wish you a happy Saint Valentine's Day. May your chocolates be eaten and your roses be red.

💍 Josh Withers is an Australian wedding celebrant based in Hobart who travels the world every week creating meaningful, fun, and honest marriage ceremonies for adventurous couples just like you.

📱 Follow Josh on Instagram, Threads, Facebook, Mastodon, Micro.Blog, or in a Qantas airport lounge somewhere.