More Wedding Traditions and Touches

Last time we talked about some customs incorporated by American couples in their wedding ceremonies and wedding receptions. Here are some more that make your wedding day even more outstanding.

Irish Traditions

The groom is lifted up in a chair (called a jaunting chair) at the wedding reception to signify he is a married man. Often, the wedding couple is given a horseshoe for luck to display in their new home. A Claddagh ring - a ring decorated with two hands holding a heart and a crown above them - is the traditional Irish wedding ring.

Greek Traditions

During the wedding ceremony, the bride and groom wear crowns of flowers or "stephana” as King and Queen of the day and their household. Their sponsor -- koumbaros (man) or koumbara (woman) -- places these on their heads. Sometimes these sponsors are the Maid of Honor and Best Man, or they are given a special role in the wedding ceremony. Inviting a man or woman or even a couple to be koumbari is a very serious undertaking. This sponsor will be a permanent member of your extended family.

Polish Traditions

Guests who dance with the bride at the wedding reception are expected to place gifts of money (preferably in money holders) in the pocket of an apron she wears for the occasion.

When the bride is dressed and ready to put on her veil, she stands by a mirror and watches her mother put it on for her. This symbolizes the last task a mother does for her little girl before she becomes a woman with her own life.

Scottish Traditions

The groom gives the bride an engraved silver teaspoon on their wedding day as a promise they will never go hungry. At the reception a traditional sword dance is often performed.

Hispanic Traditions

A large rosary or white rope called a "laso" is wound around the couple’s shoulders in a figure-8 during the ceremony to symbolize their union. Sometimes an heirloom mantilla is used in place of the “laso.” Three bouquets are used - the bride carries one, one is left at the altar to home the Virgin Mary, and their third is tossed at the ceremony.

Jewish Tradition

At the end of a Jewish wedding ceremony, a cloth-wrapped wine glass is smashed as a reminder of the hardship endured by the Jewish people by the destruction of the Holy Temple in ancient Israel, and as a reminder of the fragility of love and marriage. As the glass breaks, everyone cries "mazel tov" (congratulations) and then it's off to the wedding reception.

Next time, let's talk about what customs you can create for your own traditions!

Ethnic Wedding Touches

Today, many American couples are choosing to incorporate wedding ceremony and reception traditions derived from their own ethnic roots or heritage in homage to where they have come from. It's a really neat way of incorporating the past (something old) into the passage of a new shared life together.

Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed and Something Blue

These American practices are meant to ensure a happy and lasting marriage after the actual wedding. Carrying something old and something new symbolizes a sense of continuity while the bride is making her transition to a new life. The color blue has long been associated with purity and modesty. By borrowing something from a happily married woman, it was believed her good fortune would rub off on the bride. Oh, and don't forget the penny in the shoe! It symbolizes good fortune and protection against want.

African-American Traditions

During the days of slavery when marriage was forbidden, a man and woman declared their marriage vows by jumping over a broom. This broom symbolized a threshold and the beginning of a new married life. To honor this way that African Americans consecrated their unions in the evil days of slavery, many couples are choosing to adopt the "jump the boom" tradition into their ceremonies.

Another tradition that has been revived hearkens back to the bride's African heritage. That tradition calls for the bride to wear her hair in intricate braids decorated with cowrie shells or pieces of silver, and for the couple to wear African robes in Kente or Aso-oke in colorful geometric patterns.

A third tradition in some African-American weddings today features the traditional rite of winding, plaited grass around the couples wrists to symbolize their union.

Asian-American Traditions

In Chinese traditions, the wedding color scheme includes a warm color to signify happiness. Since red is considered the color of love and joy in this tradition, the bride may wear a red wedding dress.

In Japanese traditions, the bride and her parents visit the groom's house on the wedding day. She wears a traditional ceremonial wedding kimono as her gown and may change out of it for the wedding banquet. Nine sips of sake are drunk by the bride and groom during the wedding ceremony, but they are considered married after that first sip.

Italian-American Traditions

A white silk or satin purse called a "busta," usually decorated with lace, is carried by the bride at the wedding reception to store wedding cards, wedding money holders, and envelopes bearing gifts of money. While some cultures find giving money as a wedding gift tacky or inappropriate, in the Italian tradition, monetary gifts are considered a thoughtful way to help the wedding couple be financially established.

Next time we will discuss more customs that have been adopted. Stay tuned!

More Fun Wedding Customs

The word wedding comes from the ancient Greek meaning pledge or vow. This is perhaps the most solemn oath you can take - pledging your life and love to someone for life.

As a result, you invite all to witness the event and you photograph it and put it in an album to remember it always!

It's serious stuff, and all over the world, there have been traditions and customs established to make your union not only sacred but also ongoing!

An African wedding, more than anything, not only brings together two people as a single family, but combines two families or even the mixture of two tribes into one family unit. The concept of family is one of the unifying ideas of the African continent. Even though there are thousands of different types of ceremonies including Muslim, Christian, Jewish and even tribal, the bottom line in African weddings is that when two people marry, so do their families!

In Japanese weddings, purple is the color of love and a young bride may choose to wear an elaborately embroidered silk kimono covered in purple iris flowers. Weddings are traditionally either Shinto, during which the natural spirits, the Kami, are called upon to bless the couple, or it might be a Buddhist ceremony during which two strings of beads are interwoven, symbolizing the joining of two families into one.

A traditional groom, getting married in Malaysia, might send children bearing wedding presents to his future bride. These wedding gifts include elaborately displayed trays of food with origami flowers and cranes, made with paper currency.

Marriage in Iceland is very serious business. Couples are urged not to rush into matrimony. Long engagements are the norm, sometimes lasting three or four years. When the wedding finally did happen in the old days, it was customary for the groom to present his bride with a gift on the bridal bed. Today it is common for the bride to present the groom with a wedding bed gift.

Traditionally the bride would be waiting for her new husband wearing only her bridal headdress, which her new husband would remove. Once the couple was in bed together the priest would bless them one last time and the couple would drink from the bridal cups to seal their marriage.

These days, many Icelandic brides are opting for a more US or UK style of wedding and not the 14-day extravaganza that is part of their heritage!

Weddings differ from place to place, but they all start with a promise of a new life together.

Wedding Customs

"Something old, something new,
Something borrowed, something blue
and a silver sixpence in your shoe."

There are all sorts of wedding superstitions and customs. In this old rhyme the bride is supposed to incorporate all these items into her wedding attire and wedding accessories. It is all quite symbolic.

Something old represents the closeness of the couple to family and friends – bringing them along into their new lives. Something new is the couple’s new unity and happy future. Something borrowed is representative of the bride’s ties to her family often represented by an heirloom that preserves continuity despite her new state. Something blue means a touch of royalty, since blue bloods are royals, and the bride and groom are the king and queen of the day!

A silver sixpence signifies future wishes for wealth for the couple.

Rings

The reason that the engagement ring and wedding ring are worn on the fourth finger of the left hand is because the ancient Egyptians thought that the "vein of love" ran from this finger directly to the heart. In many parts of Europe the rings are worn on the right hand’s ring finger. Greek Orthodox ceremonies exchange the rings three times during the ceremony and they end up on the right finger, however, most couples switch them to the left as soon as the wedding ceremony is done.

Dress Color

Most brides today marry in white wedding dresses which symbolize purity and virginity. Queen Victoria married Prince Albert in white instead of silver, the traditional color of royal brides. This old English rhyme offered advice on dress color and let brides choose their own shade of dress:


Married in White, you have chosen right,
Married in Blue, your love will always be true,
Married in Pearl, you will live in a whirl,
Married in Brown, you will live in town,
Married in Red, you will wish yourself dead,
Married in Yellow, ashamed of your fellow,
Married in Green, ashamed to be seen, (except if you were Irish)
Married in Pink, your spirit will sink,
Married in Grey, you will go far away,
Married in Black, you will wish yourself back.


Customs are modified for each generation, but a little bit always stays to enrich great wedding traditions of the world.