Wedding Traditions
 

For those of you who are married or planning your wedding...have you incorporated Alpha Phi Omega into the ceremony or reception? If so, how?

I DJ a lot of weddings, including a lot of weddings of Brothers, and things I've seen:

1) a bride wore her service pin on her garter (but it wasn't the one she threw at the reception)

2) Brothers at the reception have a time to sing the Toast Song with the newlyweds in the center of the circle

3) In the wedding 'program,' I've seen the couple give a background of the wedding party, which was mostly Brothers, and also an explanation of what APO is!

At my little's wedding, all the bridesmaids except one were brothers. :) Her husband is also a brother. Other things we did:

-Group shot of all the APO brothers in attendance (Here it is, I'm the one directly behind the bride)
-"Seger session," which is a tradition among Michigan APO chapters (he went to Michigan Tech and the wedding was held in the Detroit area, where they live)
-After the last song of the night, all the brothers got in a circle on the floor and sang the toast song.

It was really cool!

Great!! Thanks everyone :) 2 of my bridesmaids are in APO, and there will be brothers in the audience...that would be so fun if the sang the toast song to me...my fiancee isn't in APO, sadly. exciting!

One of our girls is getting married and we recently found our "Sweetheart" song from when the girls were still the Phyettes, so we plan on playing it dedicated to her at her wedding.

Whenever someone in our chapter does something worth celebrating (winning or running for Miss TSU, graduating, etc) we "toast them up". Basically we form the friendship circle with the "honored" brother in the middle and sing the toast song.

I would LOVE to see/hear that.....any way I can get a copy of it?:)
Thanks a million!!

My service pin is going to be my "something blue" so excited!! I think we're down to like 26 days. I can't believe I didn't think about that sooner!

Just a little update...I got married on Jan 5th and it was BEAUTIFUL! My badge was on and my brothers danced and danced!

Congratulations!

Congrats!

Thank you!!!

congratulations Brother! Have a great life together :)

Congratulations!!!

Mazel tov!

**bump**

As you all know (or probably not!) I'm getting married next June. My fiance is an APO, so I'm glad I was able to find this thread because I wanted to incorporate something about APO into our wedding.

I got the Gamma Sig part figured out. I plan on carrying white roses :D

First off, congrats obviously!!

Second: I'm getting married in November 2010 and I was considering of incorporating APO by seeing if I could have my reception serve as our chapter's formal for that semester. The only adjustment(s) we'd have to make would be to hold our rush sooner, thus by beginning our pledging period sooner so our pledge class can be initiated in time for the event.

My concern here is the alcohol policy. Even if you card well, there may still be issues with Alcohol at an event officially on the schedule. Don't know if it would be a big issue, just something to check out.

Randy

Thanks Teh Faye! My fiance is from Nu Sigma Chapter at SFA. I recognized your chapter really quick--I work at Texas State and have seen some of the brothers on The Quad a few times. :)

Anyway I agree with naraht...I don't think you should do that. I don't know what kind of guests your expecting, but if you were going to serve alcohol that might be problematic.

Thanks for your concern guys, the alcohol rule is the NUMBER ONE thing that is throwing me for a loop. I was on the assumption that since technically any alcohol served will not be paid for with APO funds, it would be okay. But it's slowly becoming a major concern.

I'm going to go through all the proper channels to make sure everything will work out smoothly.

AWWWW congrats!

My boyfriend is in APO and I'm sure (if we) make that step we'll incorpate APO somehow.

Cool. Since we have a National Memorial Ceremony, maybe we can have a National Marriage Ceremony. :) :)

So other than singing the Toast Song at the end (fi and his brothers) any other ideas?

Maybe the fleur-de-lis design in the wedding program or on the groom's cake.

I very honestly don't know of too many APO traditions which occur across the board other than the toast song.

Although the APO toast song is typically sung in a circle, I know in APhiA, we are not allowed to completely enclose the bride for our hymn. She can be completely encircled for the sweetheart song, though. I bring that up because for the sake of the wedding pictures, you might want the APO toast song sung in a semi-circle or 3/4 circle.

Just a random thought I had -- it will be up to the brothers, though.

I better be invited too...lol

Is it bad that I already have my ideas for the wedding? If the man upstairs has it to marry my friend who I can currently talking to, he better not trip about the colors so much that I am not tripping off him wearing a gold tie (no, he isn't a member of APO, BTW). Even with these ideas, my mind is going...lol :p

Not at all!! Nothing wrong with having a vision for your wedding. When I got engaged I had no clue, LOL.

As much as we both love our respective organizations, we knew that Blue and Gold with Maroon and White together just wasn't a good look for wedding colors, LOL. Hence the asking for suggestions!