What is a wedding?
A: A wedding is a ceremony where two people are united in marriage.
Wedding traditions and customs vary greatly between
what?
A: Cultures, ethnic groups, religions, countries, and social classes.
Most wedding ceremonies involve an exchange of “what”
by a couple?
A: Marriage vows, presentation of a gift (offering, rings, symbolic item,
flowers, money, dress), and a public proclamation of marriage by an
authority figure or celebrant.
Special wedding garments are often worn, and the
ceremony is sometimes followed by what?
A: A wedding reception.
What are commonly incorporated into the ceremony?
A: Music, poetry, prayers, or readings from religious texts or
literature,
as well as superstitious customs.
Many cultures have adopted the traditional Western
custom of the white wedding, when the bride wears a what?
A: A white wedding dress and veil
This tradition was popularized through the marriage of
whom?
A: Queen Victoria.
Some say Victoria's choice of a white gown may have
simply been a sign of what?
A: Extravagance but may have also been influenced by the values she held
which emphasized sexual purity.
In the United States of America, a groom's wedding band
has not appeared until when?
A: The early 20th century.
In Europe it has been part of the tradition since when?
A: Since the ancient Romans, as witnessed by the jurist Gaius.
The exit from the wedding ceremony is also called what?
A: The "send off".
The send off often includes throwing what?
A: Rice (a symbol of prosperity and fertility) or other seeds at the
newlyweds in most of the Western world, as well as for example
India and
Malaysia.
Despite fears of the opposite, the use of uncooked rice
for this purpose is not harmful to what?
A: Birds.
The wedding ceremony is often followed by a what?
A: A wedding reception or a wedding
breakfast.
In recent years traditions have changed to include a
father-daughter what?
A: Dance for a bride and her father, and sometimes also a mother-son dance
for a groom and his mother.
Wearing a wedding veil, popularized by Queen Victoria,
was a long-held custom in which the 'purity' and 'innocence' of the bride
could thwart away what?
A: Evil spirits.
Music played at Western weddings includes a
processional song for doing what?
A: Walking down the aisle.