Reflection Paper About Wedding Ceremony

Last August 4, 2017, I went to a wedding ceremony at San Pedro City Hall, San Pedro Laguna to witness the exchange of marriage vows between my cousin and his soon-to-be wife; however, it wasn’t the usual kind of wedding that I’m used to seeing. Growing up, every time I attend wedding ceremonies, it always happens inside the church, filled with fancy flowers, red carpets and there are boys and girls playfully tossing a bunch of flower petals to the bride who’s wearing a beautiful wedding gown which most of the time reaches the ground and lastly, a priest is present to perform the ceremony, but that’s not exactly what happened when I attended my cousin’s wedding ceremony, instead, their exchange of marriage vows happened inside the City Hall;

You might wonder why. Well, it’s because a civil wedding ceremony only allows you to invite a limited number of people to join you in your special day, so the people who you will be inviting are most probably part of your primary group and in-group just like what happened to my cousin’s wedding. All the people who was invited to witness his wedding were his family members and other close-knit group of friends. On the other hand, traditional weddings allows you to invite as many people as you want as long as you can accommodate them. There are even times where some people who are neither close with the groom or bride can be even invited to traditional wedding ceremonies -which I’ve experienced first hand in some of the past weddings that I was invited to.- Fourth, the brides were all wearing a simple yet, feminine white body-con dresses which is not what I normally see because during traditional weddings, the bride is always seen wearing a fancy wedding gown; Fifth, the wedding ceremony was not as long and tedious compared to traditional weddings because some religious ceremonies that occurs in a traditional wedding is no longer required in a civil wedding, making the marriage process faster. Lastly, the thing that surprised me the most was that a government official will be the one to preside over something that