Wedding traditions from around the world

We thought we would write a slightly different article to our normal wedding photography blog posts and tell you about a few of the extensive wedding traditions there are happening around the world. There are so many different traditions and ideas even within one culture so we haven’t listed them all, but we’ve picked out a select few. Maybe you’ll get some ideas for your wedding here in the UK! Feel free to add your own findings in the comments box at the bottom of the page…we’d love to hear some more traditions. (Please note that the pictures are not our work and are those collected from Flickr.)

Did you know…….? 

Bengali

According to some sources some Bengali tribes practiced a custom where blood was drawn from the husband’s finger and mixed with betel (a type of plant) and eaten by the bride.

Pygmy

If a pygmy man is to marry his beloved one, he has to find among his relatives a girl willing to marry a brother or male cousin of his future wife. If he does so and has enough food to give, he may have even more wives.

Chinese

Before the wedding happens, it is initiated by a series of three letters. The first one is a request letter sent from the groom’s family to the bride’s family, as formal marriage request. Second one is a gift letter that accompanies the gifts of the groom’s family to the bride’s family shortly before the wedding. And third one is the wedding letter given on the day of the wedding, officially accepting the bride into the groom’s family.

Red is central to the wedding theme of China. It signifies love, joy and prosperity and is used in a variety of ways in Chinese wedding traditions. The bride’s wedding gown is often red, as are the wedding invitations, and wedding gift boxes or envelopes for cash gifts. Even the bride and groom’s homes are decorated in red on the wedding day.

It is also customary for couples to be married on the half-hour on their wedding day rather than at the top of the hour. In this way, the couple begins their new lives together on an ‘upswing’, while the hands of the clock are moving up, rather than down.

England

Some brides in England wear a penny in their shoe which should bring prosperity to their future lives as wives.

France

In some weddings in France, after the reception, people who were invited gather outside the newlyweds’ window and bang pots and pans. After a few minutes they are invited into the house for some more drinks in the couple’s honor, after which the couple is finally allowed to be alone for their first night together as husband and wife.

Japanese

The Japanese bride-to-be may be painted pure white from head to toe, visibly declaring her maiden status to the gods. The bride wears a white kimono and an elaborate headpiece covered with many ornaments to invite good luck to the happy couple. A white hood is attached to the kimono, which the bride wears like a veil to hide her ‘horns of jealousy’ from the groom’s mother, who will now become the head of the family. Japanese grooms wear black kimonos to their wedding ceremony.

The bride may change into several outfits throughout her wedding day. And her attire usually consists of an extravagant kimono, heavy make-up, a wig, and a head covering.

Taking the photographs of the bride, the groom, and their relatives are considered to be the essential part of the wedding day – it is like prevision of the couple’s future life.

Italy

In Italy on the day of the wedding, the groomsmen try their hardest to make the groom as uncomfortable as possible by saying things like “Maybe she forgot where the church is.

While in some countries blue is a color that brings good luck in Italy is green.

Poland

According to an old tradition in Poland, a groom arrives with his parents at the house of a bride just before the wedding ceremony. At that time both parents and parents-in-law give a young couple their blessing.

One of oldest customs in Poland is preparing “passing gates” on the way to the reception for the newlyweds, who in order to pass have to give the “gate keepers” some vodka.

The married couple is welcomed at the reception place by the parents with bread and salt. The bread symbolizes the prosperity, salt stands for hardship of life.

Scotland

Typical for Scottish culture is that during the wedding ceremony, the groom and much of the male bridal party, wear kilts.

You are free to be married in Scotland at 16, whereas in England you would still need parental permission at that age.

The newly wed couple may only leave the ceremony to the sound of bagpipes.

Filipino

- Sibling weddings in the Philippines must be held more than a year apart, to do otherwise is considered bad luck.

Indian weddings (in general)

The Hindu bride always wears red clothes, never white because white symbolizes widowhood in Indian culture.

Marriage is a very sad moment for the bride’s relatives – traditionally the bride is supposed to permanently “break-off” her relations with her blood relatives to join her husband’s family.

During traditional weddings bride’s hands and feet were covered with henna.

Greece

One of most specific customs of a Greek wedding is that two or three days before the wedding, the family organises a celebration called The Krevati in their new home. In The Krevati, friends and relatives of the couple put money and young children on the couple’s new bed for prosperity and fertility in their life.

Typical Greek wedding includes usually 250-500 guests – not only family and friends of the wedding couple but mostly people that parents of young couple know, in more traditional weddings even whole villages. That is why it is common to have guests whom the couple has never met before.

One of most famous traditions is the pinning of money on the bride’s dress.

USA

A color scheme at the American wedding is often selected to match everything from bridesmaids’ dresses, flowers, invitations, and decorations.

Tradition allows wedding gifts to be sent up to a year after the wedding date.

African-American

Jumping the broom developed out West African Asante custom. The broom in Ashanti and other Akan cultures also held spiritual value and symbolised sweeping away past wrongs or warding off evil spirits. Brooms were waved over the heads of marrying couples to ward off spirits. The couple would often but not always jump over the broom at the end of the ceremony.

Malaysia

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, which are made with bills of currency.

At the wedding reception, it is a Korean marriage custom, for each guest to receive an artistically decorated hard-boiled egg, which represents fertility.

Jamaica

A dark fruitcake liberally laced with rum is served at wedding receptions of Jamaican couples. Following the celebration, the wedding party slices the remainder of the wedding cake and mails them to friends and relatives unable to attend the wedding reception

Cuba

Wedding guests partake in the traditional money dance, where each man who dances with the new bride must pin money to her dress, to help the newlyweds with their honeymoon expenses.

Argentina

It is an Argentinean wedding tradition for the couple to exchange their wedding rings at the engagement, and not during the marriage vows.

Venezuela

During a traditional wedding ceremony in Venezuela, the families of the bride and groom will exchange 13 gold coins, to symbolise prosperity and good fortune. The coins are known as arras. These may also be exchanged between the couple themselves.

In Venezuela, it is traditional for newlyweds to sneak away from their own wedding reception without saying good-bye. This is considered to bring good luck to the union.

[Source: Pictures & content via Wikipedia, Worldweddingtraditions.com  and Flickr]