Wedding Customs Around The World
Weddings aren’t just a Brit thing you know. We’ve been reading wikipedia researching things diligently and it turns out that they have the blighters all round the world. But the really fascinating thing is that weddings are entirely different beasts depending on where you are. For your convenience, Staggered has trekked, or “googled” across the globe to uncover some of the weird and wonderful customs to be found in the weddings of different countries, presented as courses in a multicultural betrothal banquet.
The earth - destroyed by multicultural space giants?
Ahhh the Aperitif!
The newlywed Polish couple perform a ritual known as “passing the gates” on their way to the ceremony that involves paying anyone blocking their way in vodka.
Booze can loosen inhibitions, of course, and in extreme cases, lead to kidnap.
The Irish are a people with a renowned affinity for alcohol, and an ancient tradition of theirs was for the groom to abscond with his new bride and get her tanked on honey mead, before bringing her back to her parents knocked up, forcing them to accept the union. This is believed to be the origin of the term ‘honeymoon’.
The men of the Czech Republic and Germany are also fond of bridal kidnap, but in these cases she is taken not by the groom but his friends, and hidden from the groom after the ceremony.
In Germany she can easily be found in a nearby pub, and once the German groom has found his bride he is expected to get a round in. Prost Prost Kamerad!
Breaking the Bread
Weddings are an expensive do, and it pays to be frugal. Where the Italians have been clever is in creating their superstition that it’s bad luck for the bride to wear gold on the wedding day. That’s a discount on the ring, right there.
The Greeks really have the finances covered too [makes a change, Ed]; it’s traditional for guests to pin cash to the bride, supplementing the dowry her mother has been collecting. This money is of course badly needed to pay for all the plates that will be smashed.
The Germans are also fans of destroying crockery at weddings too, and if you really want to raise a little cash and please the guests at the same time, their tradition of publishing your own commemorative wedding newspaper to sell to guests at the reception could be just the ticket.
French toast
In a typical reception the guests can expect to toast the bride and groom. It’s traditional for the newlywed French couple to toast each other, using a cup passed down to them by their parents.
Following this vein of skewing tradition, while in the familiar British wedding ceremony it’s tradition for the father of the bride to walk his daughter down the aisle an give her away, for the French it is customary for the groom to walk his mother down the aisle.
There are those among you who might find it amusing to note that the ceremony of the bride bathing on the morning of the wedding is also a break from tradition for the French, but that attitude is racist and wrong. This act is a symbolic cleansing of previous lives and loves.
This shouldn’t suggest the French are without a sense of humour; it’s also tradition for the wedding party to bug the newlyweds on their wedding night by interrupting their foreplay, with the din of clattering pots and pans, until they are bribed with treats and persuaded to piss off.
Droopy Noodles
Annoying the newlyweds is not a tradition limited to France, and may date back to ancient China. They justify the act by suggesting it’s all done to ward off evil spirits, as many of their traditions seem to do, including their own take on the bathing of the bride. The trial for the Chinese groom isn’t limited to the wedding night however, as he is put through his paces by the bridesmaids on his way to the church, in a series of trials designed to test his worth.
Interestingly, both the traditions of harassing the newlyweds on their wedding night, and of challenging the groom’s domestic ability on the way to the church have been embraced by the planet’s biggest cock-blockers, the Italians. It’s also tradition for the Italian ushers to make the groom feel as nervous as possible, hinting that his bride may have cold feet, and kissing her to make him jealous. Just don’t invite Berlusconi.
Still, they’re fortunate compared to the Pygmy groom, who is expected to present his brides male relatives with a female member of his family to wed.
The Chinese and Italians know how to eat, catering up to 10 and 14 courses respectively. Try not to attend one of each in the same day, or you may end up with two or more spaghetti meals.
Rice For Luck
If you value your freedom, and your dad’s pet name for your mum was “the old ball-and-chain”, you might catch yourself staring at your wedding band and seeing a symbolic restraint. Still, you can shake your head and come to your senses and know how silly you were to suffer so much fear and doubt over so small a thing…such a little thing…yeah, it’s not the evil ring from Lord of the Rings, and it’s not a set of handcuffs.
Spare a thought then, for the groom of the Philippines, who, during the ceremony, finds himself tied to his bride by a not-too-heavily symbolic white cord, before the pair are dressed in veils that cover them both, to represent two becoming one. Try shaking off the trapped feeling there!
It’s not all bad for the Filipino. For most British couples, when it comes to planning their big day, avoiding the rain is a priority and a struggle. For the Filipino, however, rain is seen as lucky. In many cultures, rice is thrown over the newly weds to symbolize fertility, but in the Philippines it is used to symbolise rain. And you were probably expecting the Filipino section of this feature to cover the tradition of marrying relatively wealthy, lonely, older western men. Shame on you.
In the Indian tradition, rice is placed in a container outside the groom’s home by his mother, and kicked over by the bride as sign that she has accepted her new responsibilities. The groom should prepare to be delegated to however, if he loses the race to his seat during the ceremony; the couple circle a sacred fire before running to be the first to sit, and the winner shall wear the pants. Metaphorically speaking. There are no physical pants.
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