Wedding Customs From Around The World
Here we put together a few of the wedding rituals in different countries.
God help the man who won’t marry until he finds a perfect woman and God help him still if he finds her – Benjamin Tillett
DENMARK
Arches of pine branches are built in front of the bride’s home, which symbolises fertility. During the reception, the groom disappears so that all the unmarried young men could kiss the bride and then the bride disappears while all the single young girls kiss the groom.
FINLAND
The bride has to walk from house to house with a pillowcase to collect wedding presents. A married man walks beside her holding an umbrella to symbolise protection and shelter. During the reception, the bride wears a golden crown, and is blindfolded. She is then spun around, while other unmarried girls dance around her, and the one she crowns will be the next one to get married.
NORWAY
Friends and neighbours plant two small pine trees on either side of the bride and groom to symbolise fertility. The bride walks with a silver crown and silver charms, and the music that is created by the charms is supposed to ward off evil spirits.
SWEDEN
The mother of the bride presents her with a gold coin and places it in her right shoe while the father places a silver coin in her left shoe, to ensure that their daughter will never be poor. The groom however presents her with three gold rings – the engagement ring, the wedding ring and the motherhood ring.
CZECHOSLOVAKIA
An infant is laid on the wedding bed to symbolise fertility. The bride and the groom break plates, and the number of pieces the plates break into, is supposedly in direct proportion to the success of their married life.
HUNGARY
The bride wears an elaborate headdress made out of strands of wheat as a symbol of fertility and an egg is presented to her to ensure the health of her future children.
BULGARIA
The bride tosses a dish filled with wheat, coins and raw eggs over her head… if the dish breaks then it will bring her good luck.
ROMANIA
Girls begin preparing their trousseau at the tender age of 6.
GERMANY
When a baby girl is born, several trees are planted. These trees later become the bride’s dowry.
INDONESIA
Thousands of guests attend the wedding reception and the bride and the groom have to greet each guest!
FILIPINO
The groom throws a spear onto the front step of his bride’s house to let everyone know about the intended marriage.
NATIVE AMERICA
When a youngster sibling marries before his older sibling, the older sibling must perform a traditional dance in a pig trough!
FIJI
The grrom is expected to present the bride’s father with a whale tooth!
SCOTLAND
The bridegroom has to carry a large basket filled with stones on his back from one end of the village to another till the bride comes out and kisses him.
JAPAN
The bride wears a purple coloured dress as it is their colour of love.
CHINA
The groom’s family gives a gift of a whole roast pig to the bride’s family.
AFRICA
Young girls get trained to be good wives at a very young age and they learn secret codes that allow them to communicate with other married women with out their husband’s understanding. In Somalia, a girl can be engaged even before she is born. In Sudan, a man must pay his wife’s family, cattle for the loss of their daughter’s labour.
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In European Jewish culture, the bride’s mother makes two feather pillows for the couple to symbolize softness and comfort of the relationship.
never knew all that… but i think it doesn’t even matter.. these are just customs and i wonder if they do anything about the blissful/horrible relationships. It is all between a man and a woman to create a world of there own and live in it.
regards,
Cipher
Excellent article! I didn’t know many of those customs. How about this one for Welsh weddings?
“A tradition in Wales, that has been in practice for years, is the carving of a wooden love spoon. A man who wished to marry a particular girl carves various symbols, such as hearts, keys or bells, into a wood spoon, showing his intentions for engagement and marriage.”
–Steve
I didn’t recognize the Swedish customs, which is odd since I am from Sweden and have gotten married here. The traditions, if they existed, must be quite old and not practitioned nowadays.
What kind of crack is the author smoking? I’m 100% swedish and I have never even heard of that weird stuff. I don’t know of a single person who was presented with three rings. Most people have two, engagement and wedding.
I guess verifying stories is not a requirement here.
Hey, in some places of the US it’s common to marry your siblings or first cousins. Does that mean the US should have a paragraph about that too?
great list, it is interesting to know different cultures around the world.
The Hungarian stuff is completely wack too! It was true maybe 150 years ago. Other stuff is more important, the tradition of trying to trick the groom into accepting another woman as his bride by bringing out other women dressed as brides with their faces hidden, the kidnapping of the bride after wedding has taken place, the drinking of palinka (brandy) before the wedding ceremony, the singing and dancing, the folk music.
I’m not sure if the planting of a tree is widely practiced in Germany, but there is a custom that is quite common, especially in Bavaria: the newly married couple get a “baby tree,” decorated with rattles, pacifiers and the like, which they are supposed to place in their garden. If they fail to produce offspring in the year after the wedding, they owe the people who gave them the tree copious amounts of beer. Way to put the pressure on newlyweds!
I like the Filipino ritual. Nothing emphasizes your upright intentions better than a sticking spear on the front step.
I am a Filipino and I am very knowledgeable about my country’s customs. We do NOT do what is mentioned above.
Just FYI.
Some of the customs shown here are just plain looney! I study social customs and the ones shown here are just plain inaccurate!!!