Please throw as much advice at me as possible.
My wonderful FI is Filipino, like he originally lived there but now lives here. His mother has been ADAMANT about including every Filipino tradition imaginable, including ones she hadn't heard about or seen, but found online. Etc. She even gave me a transcript of the Filipino wedding ceremony. We have been politely trying to explain, how I am American, that my family doesn't know any of these traditions and would have a hard time filling the role of sponsors, etc.
My family, on the other hand, is fifth-generation American but originally polish. They are getting very frustrated (read: jealous) with his side trying to dominate the ceremony, and have now insisted that I incorporate Polish traditions in the wedding as well. (Although they are at least trying to use ones that are meaningful, like my mom and grandma giving me one of my great-great grandmothers aprons, but seriously.)
The one thing that our families are UNITED on, is that they hate anything we are doing that is breaking with tradition, i.e. not getting married in a church (we haven't even mentioned it isn't specifically Christian), not singling out honor attendants (my best friends are twins, you can't pick only one to be MOH.) and not having the bridesmaids dresses match exactly, and not having a flower girl because we simply don't KNOW any girls the right age but having two ring bearers because he can't choose between his two nephews.
We have probably said bordering a hundred times that this is OUR wedding, that everything we are doing is meaningful to us even if it isn't tradition, we have our reasons for doing things our way, etc. and so forth. Does anyone have a better way to talk to our families?
And just to throw a more frequent question: the money dance. My FI sadly informed me that people are going to dollar-dance me/ run up and pin money on me whether I like it or not, and announce it or not, and apparently this is supposed to happen during the first dance. If people ruin my dress later on, whatever. It happens. But not during the first dance, that's supposed to be special and beautiful, and I would like to remain photogenic for as long as possible. Any suggestions on how to postpone that until later?