Wedding Traditions

When planning your wedding it is helpful to understand the wedding traditions that have been in your family. Are you wearing your mother’s dress, recreating your grandmother’s hairstyle or following the wedding traditions as dictated by Emily Post. Traditional weddings follow form and function as seen on countless television sitcom episodes and in many films. But, what makes your wedding different, though traditional?

Catholic wedding traditions include a series of classes that happen before the wedding can even take place called Pre-Cana. This is a very personal wedding custom in the Catholic tradition that is actually a requirement to get married. The future bride and groom must meet and discuss their value of marriage and communication skills. Only then when they have gone through a weekly meeting with a Priest are they given the ok to get married.

As destination weddings become more popular many couples are learning the Hawaiian wedding traditions of the couple wearing a lei instead of the bride carrying flowers. It has become a wedding tradition for the religious man of the ceremony to bind together the hands of husband and wife with maile leis. Eloping to a Hawaiian Island is also becoming a unique American tradition.

In the Muslim tradition there are two types of weddings. The first being between a husband and his wife where they agree to support and care for each other and it can be terminated at any time. The second is one that is much disputed as to its validity and it is a marriage of sexual convenience where the man or woman is free to leave at any time. In the second type of marriage the man is allowed to have up to four wives.

You can incorporate these into several aspects of the wedding traditions. It is possible that if you are hosting a traditional Korean wedding you may want to create unique traditional wedding invitations using both Korean and American lettering. There are wedding traditions of placing the wedding band on the left ring finger, but the origination of that word, ring finger, actually comes from the German Ringfinger, creating a German wedding tradition where you may not have realized one. If you come from a more relaxed Italian, Mexican, Filipino or Welsh background you may want to reflect the tradition of your culture in the reception dinner and desserts. Whatever your style wedding traditions and wedding customs are passed down from generation to generation and can be very important to some family members.