Finding your roots: Incorporating family cultural traditions will make your wedding ceremony pop

If you want to keep your wedding from feeling cookie-cutter, the solution is simple: Add a few heartfelt details to your wedding celebration that pay homage to your family’s heritage and tradition.

“Weddings can feel a little anonymous at times,” Zoe Bird Krauss, a New York City bridal stylist, told The Post. “This is one way to make the day even more special — and personal.”

Here are some creative ways that couples have found to deepen the family connection.

Be meaningful

Elyse Goldman, 37, said she will always treasure the moment at her wedding ceremony when her father draped his tallit (prayer shawl) around her and her partner’s shoulders.

“The Jewish prayer shawl is one of the most meaningful and iconic objects — it’s a symbol of continuity and change,” said Goldman, whose wedding took place in November at the River Café in Brooklyn. “It was a forever reminder of my beloved father and the new home my husband will build together.”

Serve something significant

Including your guests in the story of your life — and love — is baked into wedding planning so sharing a special cake is another fun way to share family lore.

That’s what stand-up comedian Heather Shaw and Lilly Jean Coiner did when they got married on New Year’s Eve. In this case, the cake in question was a vegan chocolate cake made by Coiner’s Aunt Val.

“I was a vegan in high school, but my mother had founded a nonprofit barbecue festival and was determined to have a whole hog at my high school graduation party,” said Coiner who splits time between her and Shaw’s apartment in Brooklyn, and house in Louisville, Ky.

“Aunt Val made this cake and 10 years later people still talk about how good it was — they don’t talk about the whole hog!”

Serving Aunt Val’s cake was also a way to celebrate all the beloved family members sharing the day. “Family means so much to us,” Coiner said. “Aunt Val’s special cake was a great way to make sure our family felt included.”

Include family mementos

For sentimental brides, wrapping or pinning brooches, lockets and military pins into floral bouquet handles is an easy way to keep heritage close and intimate without tipping the wedding vibe or aesthetic toward a memorial, said Megan Hevenor, owner of Field Floral Studio in Portland, Maine.

“Couples are searching for ways to bring meaning into their celebrations,” she said. “These small objects of memory offer an easy way to do that and help couples feel like their day is connected to something greater, to their family history, an ancestral timeline and memories from time periods that feel meaningful to them.”

These mementos can also be incorporated into tabletop arrangements.

Plan a traditional dance

Anyone can have a DJ spinning tunes at their reception, but Arianna Sorrento Callahan wanted to make sure her guests got a chance to experience the Tarantella, a traditional dance at Italian weddings.

“It’s a fast, lively high-energy Southern Italian folk dance,” said Callahan, who lives in Queens, adding that the dance begins with everyone forming a large circle, holding hands, and moving in rhythmic circular patterns, stepping in and out with the bride and groom lifted on chairs.

“It was incredible to see all our guests on the dance floor joining in,” she said.
“Even now, my friends tell me it was one of their favorite moments from the wedding.”

Sharing this tradition was just one way she incorporated her heritage into the wedding celebration with her 225 guests at the Estate at Florentine Gardens in River Vale, NJ.

“My Italian heritage is a meaningful part of who I am,” she said. “I wanted the day to feel personal and intentional — and make sure to honor my roots.”

Repurpose a wedding dress

When Morgan Kilmer was planning her fall wedding last year, she knew that she wanted to have her grandmother, who died in 2020 during the pandemic, there with her in some way.

As luck would have it, she found her grandmother’s wedding dress, in pristine condition, in a box, which was incredible considering it was never properly preserved.

“When I took it to the seamstress, she convinced me she could revise the skirt and I could wear it as a second dress during the reception,” said Kilmer, who lives in Kansas City, Mo., adding that the seamstress also created a pocket square for her dad using the extra fabric.

“Something sparked in me at that moment. I was so close to my grandma, and I knew wearing part of her dress would help me feel connected to her,” she said.