10 Ways Your Wedding Is Likely To Be Different From Your Grandmother's

This photograph is from the popular 1970's sitcom 'Rhoda' and it just about sums up the look at 1970's weddings.

And unless you're going doing the retro route big time on your big day, I doubt you and your bridegroom are going to look like Rhoda and Jo above.

(Although they do have a sort of period charm ...)

When I saw this photograph it got me thinking about how weddings have changed in the last 40 or so years. Hopefully your grandmother will be attending your wedding day and she's going to see some differences ... and some similarities.

What's changed in weddings since your grandmother's day?

1. Nowadays you can get married in any licensed premises - which might be a hotel, under a gazebo outdoors, in a stately home, in a lighthouse. There's masses of choice. If your grandmother had got married in the UK back in the 1970s she'd have been restricted to a religious ceremony or a register office
2. You can get now married at any time up until 6pm - which makes for a great evening wedding party
3. You won't be expected to have a traditional tiered fruit cake flavour wedding cake with white icing. You can have chocolate, vanilla, Oreo - or a choice of layers
4. You'll be able to do masses of your wedding shopping - for favours, researching venues, photographers, car hire etc online
5. You can read wedding blogs like this one, for inspiration
6. You can opt for reportage photography - instead of formal family portraits
7. You could choose to get married abroad - on a beach in the Caribbean or somewhere stunning like Italy. Forty years ago this would have been prohibitively expensive (and almost impossible to organise).
8. You can post your wedding list online so it's easy for guests to choose something
9. You could have your own wedding website
10. You might have a minimoon rather than a honeymoon directly after the wedding

And what's stayed the same

1. You'll want to look your very best on your big day
2. You'll get butterflies as you walk towards your bridegroom
3. You'll almost certainly have a bouquet
4. You'll exchange wedding rings
5. It will all go by too quickly ...