A wedding is the ceremony in which two people are united in marriage or a similar institution. Wedding traditions and customs vary greatly between cultures, ethnic groups, religions, countries, and social classes. Most wedding ceremonies involve an exchange of wedding vows by the couple, presentation of a gift (offering, ring(s), symbolic item, flowers, money), and a public proclamation of marriage by an authority figure or leader. Special wedding garments are often worn, and the ceremony is sometimes followed by a wedding reception. Music, poetry, prayers or readings from religious texts or literature are also commonly incorporated into the ceremony.
Read more about Wedding: Common Elements Across Cultures, Traditional Wedding Clothing Attire, Religious Aspects of Weddings, Wedding Types, Wedding Ceremony Participants
Famous quotes containing the word wedding:
“Our wedding day, twenty years ago! A happy day. Darling is handsomer than she was then, with a glorious flow of friendly feeling and cheerfulness, genuine womanly character, a most affectionate mother, a good, good wife. How I love her! What a lucky man I was and am!”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“The massive weight of Uncle’s wedding band
Sits heavily upon Aunt Jennifer’s hand.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“You are the food,
you are the tooth, you are the husband,
light, light, sieving through the screen
whereon I bounce my big body at you
like shoes after a wedding car.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)