What Is Traditional Anyway

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Update: This video is no longer being allowed to be embedded. Please watch it at YouTube.

What if this is how you started the procession at your wedding?

It caused me to Twitter the following:

Dear Future Husband. I hope you're out there. Where ever you are, can we please get married like this? http://bit.ly/V6Ze1

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Or this is how you were proposed to?

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Or this what you did with your dress after the wedding?

Considering these "alternatives" to the traditional down on one knee proposal, church wedding and wedding dress in the closet for future generation to use, this is quite a break from the norm.

To be able to see how this applies to all of us, I give credit to Tom Martin, a true ad guy, family man, New Orleanian and blogger at Positive Disruption. He reminds us to the look at the world around us and messages, branding and creativity (and that which we are motivated to write about) are everywhere.

You're sitting there thinking something. Are you thinking:

a) Man that's the coolest set of videos I've ever seen, I want my experiences to be just like that. b) That's cool and all, I would mind being at a wedding like that, but it's not really for me. c) What about upholding tradition? Is there no respect for tradition anymore?

For brands, nonprofits, companies trying to convince you to buy something, they need to appeal to your senses, right? Your sense of style, but also your sense of adventure. Companies can look at YouTube videos, run focus groups, launch sample products all days to see the types of people interested in what they have to offer, but how far can they really get?

Here's the question that comes to mind. What is tradition to you? What traditions are meant to be broken? Is there a criterion?

One of my very best friends from college Lauren, got engaged this spring and asked me to be her maid of honor (so honored I cry a little bit every time I think about it). I had a trip to Boston on my calendar, where Lauren was living at the time, before leaving for the Philippines for Kiva, and we went back to her apartment and spread wedding magazines all over her bed and laughed and giggled and talking about the serious plans of having wedding and the things she wanted to do that were different.

"Have you ever heard of trash the dress?" She said.

I hadn't. I not really in the wedding loop, marriage stuff, mommyblog world so I'm sure there is a Universe of things out there just itching to bang on my door.

It's when after the wedding, the bride and sometimes groom go out on a photo shoot around the city and they proceed to "trash the dress." This can be from rolling in the dirt, in the ocean, crawling under a car pretending to be mechanic with oil spilling down your face on extreme cases setting your dress on fire.

"I'd love to do that." She said.

Why not? We only use our dresses once. Let's get some use and photoshoot time out of them.

Here is my conclusion. We are only limited by the confines of our own minds. There is a place and time for tradition, but the craziest most "off the wall" thing you can think of, that's on the table too. It's not about one-upping the latest crazy stunt, it's about making something special that matches your personality.

Push the confines, make the special events in your life stick out, be a one in a million.

(And then of course post to YouTube so we can all see it too).