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:
“And thus Snow White became the prince’s bride.
The wicked queen was invited to the wedding feast
and when she arrived there were
red-hot iron shoes,
in the manner of red-hot roller skates,
clamped upon her feet.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“The Ancient Mariner seizes the guest at the wedding feast and will not let go until he has told all his story: the prototype of the bore.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“He holds him with his glittering eye—
The Wedding Guest stood still,
And listens like a three years’ child:
The Mariner hath his will.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)