By Kitty Wright

I don’t even know how I started to like weddings. You would think that as the youngest and only girl of four children, that I would be the family princess. Well….no. I was a total tomboy. I played in the dirt, Power Ranger, tag, you name it, with my group of all boyfriends. Every birthday was Power Ranger-themed; you could say I was obsessed. All of that started to change once I reached middle school. I ditched the sports shorts, oversized t-shirts, and tennis shoes for skinny jeans, fitted tops, and converse. I think one day I just decided to watch TLC’s “Say Yes to the Dress” and I’ve been hooked ever since.

Recently a couple of my friends proclaimed themselves “hard-core feminists,” and that got me thinking. Thinking about what that really means for a woman who is all for women’s rights, but still wants that fairytale love story. If there is one moment in our lives where we’re forced to confront how we feel about gender equality, it’s weddings. Let’s be frank: weddings don’t have the very best history when it comes to women. The topics range from women being traded from man to man as property, right up to women not being able to hold a credit card except in her husband’s name (true until the 1970s).

 I read an article that showed a poll of what the top 3 issues were for women getting married: the engagement ring (the bigger the rock the better he can support you), the name change (difficult no matter what the situation is) and who pays (Daddy always said I was his little princess….).  What is a woman getting married nowadays to do? Well. I read another opinion piece on the topic and the author quoted Clare, a Scottish theologian on her thoughts of her own wedding: “The Latin origin of tradition, ‘traditio,’ means not only to hand on, but to hand over. The meanings of practices such as those within weddings are not rigid, but given on to us to value and interpret in our own contexts.”

So who really cares about what the women did before us? That’s what they did with the traditions they were handed down, and now we get to do our own thing. Have both parents walk you down the aisle. Never even consider changing your name. Wear that sparkly ring proudly (at least on most days), and be that girl playing Power Rangers on the playground wearing a pretty dress. As long as you are marrying your dream guy, you have your wedding to use as your first opportunity to shape and claim your marriage and your family life: to balance your beliefs with custom.