DD and I were chatting and got to talking about wedding things, and she mentioned stag and hen parties, which I had never heard of, but are what we call bachelorette and bachelor parties here. A stag party here is a party where only guys attend, but going stag to something means you are going without a date. so yeah. Then we discussed why hens and stags are involved at all. There are a lot of traditions, weird and otherwise, associate with getting hitched. What are some you all have?

Here in the US, the bride is suppose to wear something old, new, borrowed and blue. The groom shouldn't see her before the wedding b/c of bad luck. Bachelorette and bachelor parties are a must, and often times involves strippers. The father of the bride walks her down the isle.

"Why do brides wear virgin white?
Most do not deserve that right.
To choose a color of their delight,
Would surly bring on the frowns."
-Primus

Trust me - hen and stag do's are a whole different level than what you get in the USA.

Source: I live in the Hen and Stag do capitol of Europe.

I'm not sure if I can handle relating it.

I find weddings to be wholly strange and bizzare. They remind me of primordial custom that has long since lost its touch with reality.

Marriage customs and rituals are a waste while being far from sacred. Since human beings are a promiscuous species and ironically, at times, the only way to save a marriage is by cheating.

I realise that this may well open up a can of worms. However, the way I see itl; marriage is the most anachronistic convention there is. I reckon that if society were to allow people to act like the vile debauched vermin that they are then civilisation would soon to be torn asunder.

Nothing weird on my side.

We had a gunfight followed by a hanging at our wedding.

Here when people wed, they have one mandatory ceremony in the township or the registrar comes directly to a restaurant or hall where celebration is to take place. There is also an option of church wedding which may or may not happen on the same day or even year as the secular one, depending on the preferences. It should also be noted that church wedding ceremonies are not performed during the four main periods of extended fasting (Christian Orthodox Church), unless special permission has been granted.

There's famous rural tent weddings, food and drinks galore, live loud folk music, the whole shebang. Recently, especially in urban environments people opt more and more for smaller, intimate ceremonies, one reason being financial, the other personal preference. Also, modern music (domestic and foreign) has found its way to these events, in many cases superseding traditional one.

Whether or not you have hired ones for the main ceremony, buglers are bound to show up in front of the church waiting for the newly weds to come out and best man to fill their trumpets with cash. Traditionally, it would have been a bag of coins whose contents would be thrown to the assembly, the cue being "Best man, your sack has burnt!" (literal translation, bone thrown). But nowadays, paper currency is largely preferred :)

Related, there's also one growingly popular custom called divorce.

In India, according to hindu customs, if an astrologer deems a woman to be a manglik (apparently cursed by the gods or something) then she must perform her marriage rites by taking a dog as a husband (I kid you not)...that is before she marries her actual husband. Unfortunately, the dog is not allowed to consummate the marriage.


Also, there were customs where if a husband passed away then a devoted wife would jump into his fuineral pyre and burn herself alive. It has been outlawed since then although it still takes place in certain remote regions of the country.

You should have let the thread run for a while before posting because nobody is gonna be able to top those :P

Man, nothing can top your stories. This and how you became a firefighter...

Thanks for linking that. That was awesome.

In the U.S., we have so many cultures here that we borrow from all over.

At my wedding, we used a traditional Jewish Chuppah and recited a simple Hebrew phrase (along with English translation): Baruch atah, Adonai Eloheinu, Melech haolam (Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Sovereign of the universe). Grandma thought we were "speaking in tongues" in a charismatic Christian sort of way. :)

We had my wife's brother play some worship music with an acoustic guitar.

A church-trained organist from a very formal denomination played the Hallelujah chorus at the end on these massive pipes. What we didn't know was that it was akin to blasphemy to not play the entire song. So as he was asked to stop so we could resume the wedding, he shouted in a panic "I can't stop here!" So we all got to hear the whole rendition, which was very well-played.

We did not take a handful of cake and slam it into each others' faces, but some do that.

In the South, we have the "wedding cake" which is really the bride's cake. And a "groom's cake" which is usually comic-book, hunting, video-games, or otherwise fun-related. But my wedding was when I was a Michigander, so we had nothing of the sort. Just an elegant, fondant-free cake. :)

We had dancing, but no drinking at our party afterwards. Some add drinking, some take away dancing. It's all personal preference. We have very heavy drinkers in my family and my wife's family thinks alcohol is the devil, so we just excluded it since neither one of them can handle it properly.

We had no Unity Candle. We think it's cheesy. But some do that. Two little candles light a big fancy candle.

Anyhoots, there's some from us.

i think india is winning? lol

thanks for sharing guys, i knew there would be some fun stuff to read and discuss.