#wedding customs

[rjana-luzica]

Hoyerswerda/Wojerecy region, around 1910: Carriage with the dowry of the bride || via Sorbisches Kulturarchiv (by Serbski Institut)

[tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors]

Do you have any cool wedding info to share?

!!!!!! yES

also i alksjdaksdkladsl i got too excited and it got long long long so im putting it under a cut alskdjalk

The tradition of bridesmaids comes from the Romans, and its why they all typically dress the same! the tradition of the white wedding dress came to us later, in the victorian era, and originally all the bridesmaids and the bride were dressed in the same color the idea was that a bride was especially vulnerable to malicious spirits during this huge transition period of her life, and dressing up several other young women in similar outfits would confuse the spirits and keep them from targeting her, because they wouldnt be able to tell them apart!

the reason the bride stands to the grooms left is to leave his sword hand free

theres a scottish wedding tradition that the night before the wedding the bride and grooms friends take them out and - i shit thee not - attack them with ash, treacle, flour, feathers, you name it. they just absolutely wreck their shit and i think its fantastic. its called the "blackening"

Also, lots of people know about dowries and they feature pretty popularly in historical fiction, but fewer people know that there are actually multiple types of "bridal goods" (property exchanged as part of a marriage contract) and some cultures use more than one!

Dowry - property settled on the bride/the marriage by her parents. The idea of this was to show that the parents were not just trying to get rid of their daughter and get one less mouth to feed - the property/money was meant to be specifically to help take care of her and any children she might bear. many cultures considered the dowry the wife's property rather than her husbands, and it was usually meant to be returned to her in the event of divorce.

Bride price - essentially the opposite of a dowry. money or property given from the groom or grooms family to the brides family in exchanged for her hand in marriage. it served multiple functions - to prove to the brides family that the groom had the means to support her and any of their children financially, and to compensate the family for the loss of her labor

dower, also called a "morning gift," "bench gift," or "bride-veil gift" and is my favorite - property given directly from the groom to the bride herself upon their marriage. basically what this is is a thank you gift/compensation for the fact that as his wife she's now going to be risking her life bearing his children. the least common type of bridal good, but my favorite because i think its pretty decent of a guy to flat out be like "yeah pregnancy and childbirth are risky af thanks for being willing to do that" ESPECIALLY in time periods where marriages were more like business transactions

a lot of times in fiction bridal goods/dowries are just a lump sum of money, but that was actually pretty rarely the case! any kind of property could be used as bridal goods, and often more than one kind of good was included - land, livestock, household goods, clothing, jewlery, or even books!

[awed-frog]

‘No kids allowed’ marriages are weirdly common in America. My husband’s family had a lot of those. I also remember that woman over on Reddit who said she would not go to a wedding without her children and got absolutely destroyed in the comments and called selfish

I guess it makes sense if you approach weddings in that weird, consumeristic way: ‘my day as a princess’ (or, as that woman who wanted a minimum donation of $1500 from her guests put it, ‘my day as a Kardashian’). But I mean, it’s sad so many people see their wedding day as some kind of Instagram occasion and all they care about is the best dress, the best ~aesthetics or whatever else - to the point of planning it for literal years, spending eye-watering amounts of money, excluding children, badgering relatives into getting ‘good’ haircuts and selecting bridesmaids based BMI so the pictures will look good. I understand that people obviously want their wedding day to be perfect, but when you see what looks ‘perfect’ to some you understand the level of brainwashing at work in our society.

I mean I have mentioned this before, but our local Franciscan monk was very proud of the fact about one third of the couples seeing him for their compulsory pre-church wedding conversations actually broke up before the wedding. 

(In case someone out there doesn’t know, people who want to get married in a Catholic church have to talk to the priest first - these conversations take place once a week for an hour or so and generally last three months. On one side, you discuss religious things, and what God wants when it comes to raising children and whatever, and they also check you’re actually baptized and not some random heathen trying to sneak his way into Paradise, but they also talk about practical and legal matters and - if the priest has a head on his shoulders - about more general stuff concerning relationships and general decency.)

Anyway these were people who had booked the restaurant and ordered expensive stuff here and there and snatched up the best photographer and he would go, “So, you guys want kids? And if yes, will either of you stop working, or do you have relatives nearby, or you would prefer a kindergarten? What about a join bank account, yes or no?” and people would literally start shouting at each other right in front of him because those things had never come up at all and they had wildly different opinions.

(When it comes to expensive weddings, I know it’s got something to do with Queen Victoria but my secret conspiracy theory is that there was a deliberate effort somewhere to create the idea it’s okay if your whole life is shit and not what you want it to be, because you’re allowed your one day to ‘feel like a princess’ so be happy about it. And obviously that perfect day revolves around stuff you have to buy, so it’s win-win for the 1% - they get to exploit us most of our lives while selling us more shit we don’t need. And the fact 90% of that shit is aimed at women is not a coincidence, either.)

[bramblywitch]

https://www.jfedgmw.org/wedding-customs-old-new-reinvented/

Wedding Customs: Old, New, Reinvented - Jewish Federation of Greater Metrowest NJ

Wedding Customs: Old, New, Reinvented

[bitchin-beskar]

I’m just popping in to say that I absolutely adore your writing! It’s always so good and well written and detailed. I really love your King!Din series and I was wondering if in your AU there’s different wedding customs for mandalorians? Is it still a small private affair or are there weddings and celebrations?

thank you darling!!!!! 

so, we’re definitely going to see the actual wedding taking place in the course of Royal Affairs (whether it’s a chapter in the story or an accompanying oneshot, I don’t know yet), so I don’t want to spoil too much, but I can give u a little taste of what’s to come!

in my AU specifically, weddings are big affairs. especially royal weddings. i’m talking a full week of partying and celebration. there’s a private ceremony that’s just attended by the two getting married, and the one they’re giving their vows in front of, but then there’s a huge celebration afterwards. the actual exchange of vows is extremely private, but then the newly wedded couple share in their joy with guests during the actual celebration, filled with dancing, drinking, partying, and general excitement. 

although, I will say that Din might take a little bit of time to... re-acquaint himself with you now that the two of you are married. afterall, he’s curious... does it feel different making love to his wife now that they’re bonded for life?

[twitter-and-twine]

A Lesson in Culture

“In both Ukraine and Russia, both spouses-to-be would wear crowns during the wedding ceremony, apparently continuing an ancient tradition from Byzantium,” says professor Alexander Mihailovic, who teaches at Bennington College and specializes in Slavic Literature. “Ukraine has preserved the original Greek and Byzantine tradition of wedding head wreaths.”

-Vogue

[katerinaaqu]

What did weddings look in mycenean greece

Oh man that is tricky given that the weddings are not easily observed by the remains the same way as funeral rites are. Also when we talk about burials, the custom of having many individuals together especially those who represent the same status or family etc make it difficult to have something specific in mind.

However we did notice in studies that many individuals had close kin relationships for instance cousin level of kinship. So we do seem to have a similar custom in bronze age as we have in classical times for instance have close kin marriages. If that is true then perhaps the weddings could be similar to what we have in later years in Greece (see also another ask of mine)

Post by @katerinaaqu · 1 image

💬 4  🔁 2  ❤️ 12 · Can I ask what ancient Greek weddings used to look like ? Oh boy that is a really wide question but I expect that we spea

It is hard to tell how many of the customs of classical Greece appear also to Mycenaean times (for instance it is hard to tell if the same hair-cutting ceremony is practiced) but there is a high chance that many of the customs of later antiquity were followed at that stage

For instance we expect the existence of sacrifice to the gods, a feast and a bedding ceremony and gifts be passed to the couple (custom that seems to be held by many different cultures and throughout the eons). Ceremonies that involve sacrifice are also linked to the feasts given that animals that are not supposed to be burnt completely, are cooked and shared with the guests.

Of course social status we expect to play a huge part as to what kind of ceremony one has and how much of a choice one has on their marital partner etc But we expect certain aspects to be common in every case hehe such as blessing from the gods, a feast and a bedding ceremony that seals the marriage. The consummation of the wedding is after all apparent in most cultures for a great deal of centuries hehe

[hebrewbyinbal]

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@jewsindoodles

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