BY NATALIE TRUSSO CAFARELLOBLADE STAFF WRITER
Many millennial couples are putting the "I" in "I do" by individualizing their marriage celebrations.
The trend these days is to put "the experience" above tried-and-true tradition.
On May 9, about 175 family and friends surrounded the stone grotto at Nazareth Hall in Grand Rapids, Ohio, to witness Whitney (formerly Hopper), 35, and Jordan Rofkar, 34, marry. Making the wedding ceremony unique was important to the couple.
"We wanted to have a distinctly personal ceremony," she said. "For Jordan and I, our wedding was much more than joining two people. … It was the merging of families and friends as well. It was important to have a family wedding ceremony that included Jordan's 6-year-old daughter, Mackenzie."
For a "personalized experience" the Toledo couple had a friend officiate the outdoor ceremony and speak about their relationship, and a friend read a poem. To signify the new beginning, the three released monarch butterflies, "opening the lid on the box" and their new family.
Lauren (formerly Klug), 26, and Chris Lorenzen 26, of Columbus took the plunge at Bowling Green State University, where they first met.
"BGSU was really the beginning of our love story," Mrs. Lorenzen said.
On May 24 the couple married on campus at Prout Chapel. The half-hour wedding ceremony was officiated by Lauren's stepfather, who became a celebrant through an online program.
"We went more for the sentimental feeling on what is important for us, rather than the religious aspect," Mr. Lorenzen said. "We are spiritual. We don't have any religious affiliation. We are not atheists by any means."
Festivities took place at the ballroom at the Bowen-Thompson Student Union.
The couple also had university roots.
"I was the bat boy for BGSU baseball when I about 8 or 9, so I grew up in the BGSU Falcon family," he said.
The couple's personality and love story was strewn throughout the reception. Place mats were created with their love story stamped on them and tables were named after places significant to their relationship.
Perhaps the most personalized moment was when BGSU mascots Freddie and Frieda got the reception started by hitting the dance floor with the bride and groom.
Eyes soar
Serendipity Photography owner Gerri Leonard, who is contracted for many weddings, said butterfly releases and other personalized elements are new things she has seen in recent years.
"We have seen it over the last few years where the dog was there or part of the wedding ceremony. The guests love it," she said.
Some may even pin a GoPro camera on the pooch for a unique perspective.
"With a GoPro you can take still images or video. It's a different look," she said, adding that its small size means you can attach it to people and pets for their view of things.
If it's an outdoor wedding, drones can capture the day from above. Toledo Aerial Media, owned by Phil Myers, James Jackson, and Brandon Begin, started with taking photos on land, but they eventually made use of the new cutting edge media.
"We were into GoPros and thought 'Well how can we take it to the next level?' So we got into the drone stuff and it took off from there," said Mr. Myers, 32, who also tied the knot in May.
He said drones are popular with weddings because they provide diverse images.
"Everyone loves the different aspect and look, whether during ceremony or right after, or when they go off to different locations. You can get creative with it. Brides always want something new or unique to their own wedding. They don't want to flip through their friends' photos and know I got that photo or have that photo," he said.
Mr. Myers and his bride Jessica Ison, 26, had sky-high shots of the ritual taking place between rows of budding apple trees at Bennett's Orchard in Ottawa Lake, Mich. The bride arrived on a white carriage pulled by Clydesdale horses, captured with the drone camera.
Using an officiant and taking out some of the spiritual aspects of the ceremony shaved it down to 20 minutes.
"We didn't want to go to a church that we don't normally go to anyway, and then not go to afterward," he said.
The demographics
According to a 2015 Pew Research Center report America's Changing Religious Landscape, more Millennials are breaking from religious ties and "driving the growth of the Nones," those who do not associate with any specific religion.
The survey found that "35 percent of those born between 1981-1996 are religiously unaffiliated. Far more Millennials say they have no religious affiliation compared with those who identify as evangelical Protestants (21 percent), Catholics (16 percent) or mainline Protestants (11 percent)."
"That does speak to weddings being more and more casual. Religious ceremonies are less popular than they once were," said Jamie Miles, managing editor of TheKnot.com, a national media group that is the go-to source for brides-to-be.
Couples are shrinking the formalities to as little as 10 minutes, and putting more emphasis on the reception.
According to The Knot's 2014 Real Weddings Study Statistics, last year 28 percent of couples had their wedding ceremony in a religious institution, down from 41 percent in 2009.
"[It's about] incorporating personality. One may be very involved in baseball and very interested in sports, [opting to have the wedding on baseball field]. So they are rethinking the venue," Miss Miles said.
Some couples are holding onto customary practices but adding a modern accent.
Two 32-year-old Sylvania natives now living in Boston, Dr. Vin Gupta, 32 and Dr. Nisha Ahir, recently hosted a traditional Hindu wedding with modern touches. Both arrived at the Sylvania Country Club on a school bus.
Dr. Gupta developed a crush on Dr. Ahir when he noticed her on the school bus when they were in elementary school. The school bus theme spilled over into photos. Wedding guests were encouraged to take photos and post to Instagram with the hashtag #schoolbuslove524.
"Weddings are getting more casual so thinking outside the box is a common thing," Miss Miles said. "It makes it cool when they have a theme in mind and cohesive for guests. On average [the numbers of] guests are going down. It's 136, but couples are spending more."
The national spending average on weddings is now $31,213, nearly a $1,400 increase from 2013.
Couples are also putting more thought into creating a cohesive wedding experience.
"They are extending the wedding activity. Wedding weekends are more common, like a welcome dinner, a cocktail hour, maybe a morning after brunch. For destination weddings they have itineraries to let guests know about activities around the area," Miss Miles said.
"It is definitely a trend, the hyper-personalization of weddings, because couples want to showcase their personalities through the wedding details from venues to the cake. And more people are sharing weddings on social media now, so people see what others have done and want to be different," she added.
Love and cynicism
Mark Cohen, the director of retail studies at Columbia Business School in New York, has observed Millennials out in the real world and can't seem to place their behavior.
"There's a temptation on part of Boomers, like me, to think that everyone is like [us] and that is not true. I teach at Columbia and most students are all Millennials. Whether from the United States or anywhere, they are from a different planet than where I've come from," Mr. Cohen said.
He theorized that because many Millennials are a product of broken marriages, born in a period when divorce rates are higher than 50 percent, they hold a different world view toward what marriage means, and therein lies the break with religion.
"So it is not an event for the rest of your life necessarily. Maybe that does not warrant an over the top ceremony in pomp and circumstance and expenses," he said.
"I don't know if anyone was particularly influenced by Mark Zuckerberg [and Priscilla Chan's backyard wedding], but Millennials may have a jaundiced view of spending a gazillion dollars on a dress they will never wear again. It's like putting on a show we used to look forward to, that is now irrelevant. 'So let's do something for ourselves that we value,' whether at the beach, backyard, or baseball field, or even an event hall.
"It is not about appearances. 'We don't value appearances,'" he said.
Angie Dixon, catering and event coordinator for the Mud Hens, said in recent years couples are accentuating the personal elements with emotionally based events rather than religious.
"Anything from the photo booth to, instead of doing a receiving line, they want to have a cocktail hour where the bride and groom hand out the drinks instead of bartenders," she said.
"I think brides and grooms are leaning toward the laid back and simple as opposed to stuffy, such as the thought 'We are doing this by the book and because this is how we always do it,' " she said.
Couples who choose to have their wedding at Fifth Third Field take advantage of the venue changes within the venue.
"Typically they get married on the field, then have cocktail hour in the pub near right field, and then we move to the reception on the third or fourth floor where there are banquet halls or the BirdCage, which is the suite level. Having different locations keep guests moving, interested, and having fun," she said.
Newlyweds Rachel Burgess, 26, and Ryan Anderson, 28, of Milan, Mich. forwent the church and steeple, opting to say "I do" on home plate.
"I just didn't want a cookie cutter wedding with a church. I just wanted something different," Mr. Anderson said.
The ceremony time was less than a half inning: 15 minutes.
Contact Natalie Trusso Cafarello at 419-206-0356, ntrusso@theblade.com, or on twitter @natalietrusso.
Source: Millennials moving away from traditional wedding vows
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