Carly Romeo, and her team at Carly Romeo & Co., wants us to envision a world where all people looking to get married get honored, celebrated, and respected as individuals, and the bride-centrism that we commonly see in the wedding industry isn’t letting us (and our unions) be great. Here are just a few reasons why.

Given all of the pressure from family, friends, and society to have a “perfect” wedding, saying goodbye to these traditions is easier said than done. That’s why it is so important to find wedding vendors who will share your values and help you take the patriarchal, sexist, and racist ideas about weddings and throw them squarely in the trash. Zig Metzler of Ziggy Shoots is ready to be that wedding photographer for you!

Yearning for a successful wedding or to at least not get kicked out of more than one wedding party, I started studying how to be a bride and the history of Western wedding traditions. That’s when I uncovered how wedding traditions were originally designed to pressure women into becoming mothers, to erase their individuality for the sake of family, to give men power over them, and to discriminate against anyone who wasn’t a white, cis heterosexual.

Once upon a time, a gentleman caller asked my grandpa for my aunt's hand in marriage. Grandpa asked him what he thought about my aunt working after marriage, and the dude said he hadn't thought of it. My grandpa kindly redirected the frat boy to suggest that he might want to talk to my aunt more before he proposed to her.

If she had chosen someone black, someone wealthier than her, someone, or anyone, else, there would still be commentary about it. There would still be outrage. The longer I've worked in this world, the more I realize that the wedding industry has little to do with weddings and everything to do with a public pronouncement of a woman's worth. Most wedding media enforces it; the whitest, slimmest, blondest, most feminine women deserve the gigantic rings, the most lavish productions, and most deserving partners (usually your run-of-the-mill dude-bro). That's who graces the covers and the ads that drive what I consider unnecessary hype.