Wedding Ceremony Participants
Wedding ceremony participants, also referred to as the wedding party, are the people that participate directly in the wedding ceremony itself.
Depending on the location, religion, and style of the wedding, this group may include only the individual people that are marrying, or it may include one or more brides, grooms (or bridegrooms), persons of honor, bridespersons, best persons, groomsmen, flower girls, pages and ringbearers.
A woman’s wedding party consists of only those on her side of the wedding party. Those on a groom’s side are called his groom’s party.
- Bride: A woman about to be married.
- Bridegroom or Groom: A man who is about to be married.
- Marriage officiant: the person who officiates at the wedding, validating the wedding from a legal and/or religious standpoint. This person may be a judge, justice of the peace, or a member of clergy.
- Best Man, Woman, or Person: The chief assistant to a bridegroom at a wedding, typically a sibling or friend of special significance in his life. Often holds the wedding rings until their exchange.
- Maid, Matron or Man of Honor: The title and position held by a bride's chief attendant, typically her closest friend or sibling.
- Bridesmaids: The female attendants to a bride. Males in this role may be called honor attendants or sometimes bridesmen, but that term has a different traditional meaning.
- Groomsmen or Ushers: The attendants, usually male, to a bridegroom in a wedding ceremony. Female attendants, such as a sister of the groom, are typically called honor attendants.
- Page(s): Young attendants may carry the bride’s train. In a formal wedding, the ring bearer is a special page who carries the rings down the aisle. The coin bearer is similar page who marches on the wedding aisle to bring the wedding coins.
- Flower girl(s): In some traditions, one or more children carry bouquets or drop rose petals in front of the bride in the wedding procession.
Read more about this topic: Wedding
Famous quotes containing the words wedding, ceremony and/or participants:
“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)
“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“A civilization which leaves so large a number of its participants unsatisfied and drives them into revolt neither has nor deserves the prospect of a lasting existence.”
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939)