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Cutting the cake

Weddings and University life — an unexpected couple

While fall and spring seasons are beautiful times of natural transition, they are also seasons endowed with meaning and significance for many people. They are traditionally seasons of rituals — spring cleaning, gardening, football, harvesting — or at least partaking in society’s obsession with all things pumpkin. It’s no surprise that these months are jam-packed with one of the oldest, most ritualistic ceremonies — weddings.

We have all seen brides hovering outside the Chapel with their bridal parties, completely out of place as students rush to lectures from the Corner. Engagement photography sessions take place on the Lawn, on the steps of the Rotunda and in the gardens. Even though marriage may seem to be a distant and fleeting thought for University students just trying to make it through the semester, planning for our futures is not necessarily a foreign concept.

Last week, a few of my guy friends were discussing the potential to reserve the Chapel for a date four years from now and all getting married on the same day, in order to skip the wait list and conveniently be in town together to celebrate one another’s weddings. Marriage is not far from our thoughts, conversations or activities — even if we breach the subject with a sense of humor.

The more I thought about it, the more aware I became of our strong ties to the institution of marriage. Weddings are centered on tradition — as are many aspects of U.Va. Tradition informs the physical, social, cultural and mental spheres of life on Grounds. Our semesters are centered on traditions like Rotunda Sing, Trick or Treating on the Lawn, Lighting of the Lawn — the list could go on and on. Our behaviors are strongly guided, if not in some ways bound, by the rituals we perform here.

Upholding tradition and practicing rituals can be wonderful things. They bring communities together. They provide ways to praise, commemorate and acknowledge who we are and who we want to be as individuals and as a University — much like weddings do for brides, grooms and attendants. However, we must consider whether our traditions are still expressing what we sought out to express, or if they are still upholding what we intend them to uphold.

Two weeks ago, I attended a wedding for a friend of mine about an hour outside of Charlottesville. The wedding was a simple and elegant ceremony in a small wooden church, and afterwards, we drove only a few miles down the road for a beautiful reception on a farm. After hours of dancing and laughter, we formed a tunnel and waved ribbons above the couple as they left and drove away. It wasn’t until the very end that I realized that they had completely forgotten to cut their cake — at the end of the night it was sitting there, decorated, uncut and uneaten.

For many people, cutting the cake is an iconic tradition — one which will be captured by a few dozen photographs — feeding each other a small piece of cake and smearing icing on the other’s face is a ritual most would be devastated to miss. But I love that my friends forgot all about it. No one missed it. Their wedding was a celebration of love — love for their families, love for their friends, love for each other and love for a higher love that binds all things together in perfect unity. Somehow, in disregarding the ritual, they stayed more true to the sentiment it was trying to express.

Sometimes I feel like life at U.Va. can carry on like a perpetual wedding day. Students try to balance fulfilling rituals, meet expectations and carry on traditions all while celebrating life, moving forward and constantly transitioning. There are so many rituals we struggle to uphold — some of them we should, and some of them we probably shouldn’t.

Traditions can be great — they can unite us with a shared history and identity. However, they might not always be the best way to express whatever sentiment we actually want to uphold. Maybe some of them are limiting the way we’re living and thinking, rather than expressing it outright. What would it be like for us to intentionally uphold each tradition we support and be free to disregard those that aren’t as genuine or necessary to who we are as a community?

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