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Wednesday 1 May 2019

Wedding

A wedding is a ceremony during which two people become married. It is usually between a man (the bridegroom) and a woman (the bride). In some places, same-sex weddings are legal. Traditionally, the wedding is held at the bride's church, temple, synagogue or other religious centre, or the home of her parents is the site of her wedding.

Roman Catholic white wedding (Philippines) By Judgefloro

WEDDINGS IN HISTORY

Bridal veils began in ancient Greece and Rome where a veil was said to protect against evil spirits.

In 29AD Jesus attended a wedding at Cana in Galilee and turned water into wine. Weddings in Jesus' day were week-long festivals. Banquets would be prepared for many guests, and the week would be spent celebrating the life of the married couple. Often the whole town was invited and everybody would come-it was considered an insult to refuse an invitation to a wedding. To accommodate many people, careful planning was needed. To run out of wine was more than embarrassing; it broke the strong unwritten laws of hospitality.

Ireland held Tailteann mass marriages where couples were allowed to wed and be married for a year to see if they were fit for each other. They could divorce by proceeding to the so called "separation hills" without leaving a mark on their reputation. This was legal until the 13th century.

A ring has been included in wedding ceremonies since the 12th century. Pope Innocent III ordained that marriages had to take place in church and that a wedding ring should be exchanged during the service.

Pixiebay

King Richard II of England married Anne of Bohemia in Westminster Abbey on January 20, 1382. The king had to pawn the Crown Jewels to pay for the wedding.

The first association of diamonds with weddings comes from an account of a Hapsburg emperor giving a diamond engagement ring to his wife in 1477.

The wedding of King Henry VII of England and Elizabeth of York on January 18, 1486 saw the first recorded use of fireworks in Britain.

The best man is the chief assistant to the groom at a wedding and (along with the maid of honour) The Phrase "best man" is of Scottish origin, and recalls the days when a bridegroom simply abducted the woman he wanted as a bride. To help him in that task the groom enlisted a cadre of friends in case the bride needed to be kidnapped from disapproving parents. The toughest and bravest of these groomsmen was the best man.

The 'best' man's role was also to beat back angry relatives as they burst into the ceremony-allegedly the reason why the bride stands on the left of the groom and the best man. If things got nasty, they could draw their swords with their right hands.

The earliest surviving written use of the term best man comes from 1782, observing that "best man and best maid" in the Scottish dialect are equivalent to "bride-man and bride-maid" in England.


Felix Mendelssohn wrote "The Wedding March" in 1843 as part of his suite of incidental music for a production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. It was used as the backdrop for the climactic wedding scene in the play.

"The Wedding March" was played at the marriage of Queen Victoria's eldest daughter, Victoria, and Friedrich of Prussia on January 25, 1858, after which it became a popular wedding recessional.

In 1922 the American Episcopal church voted to excise the words "to obey" from its wedding service's marriage vows.

The wedding of Jacqueline and John F. Kennedy took place on September 12, 1953, at St Mary's Church, in Newport, Rhode Island. It was considered the social event of the season with an estimated 800 guests at the ceremony and 1000 at the lavish reception that followed at Hammersmith Farm.

Senator John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy on their wedding day

A worldwide television audience of over 700 million people watched the wedding of Lady Diana Spencer and Prince Charles on July 29, 1982. The ceremony took place at St Paul's Cathedral in London. The wedding vows had only one omission. Diana was the first royal bride not to promise to obey.

RECORDS

The tallest couple on record was married in 1871 when 7'5"  Anna Hanen Swan married 7'2" Martin Van Buren Bates.

103-year-old Harry Stevens married 84-year-old Thelma Lucas at the Caravilla Retirement Home in Wisconsin on December 3, 1984. Harry was the oldest bridegroom in history.

The oldest bride in history is Minnie Munro, who was 102 years old when she married Dudley Reid, who was 83 years old, in Point Clare, New South Wales, Australia on May 31, 1991. The couple had been friends for many years, and they decided to tie the knot after Reid's wife died. The wedding was a small ceremony, with only close friends and family in attendance. Munro wore a white dress, and Reid wore a suit. The couple exchanged vows, and they were pronounced husband and wife. After the wedding, the couple went on a honeymoon to Hawaii. They lived together for the rest of their lives, and they died within a few months of each other in 2002.

The largest wedding reception was in India with a banquet for more than 150,000 guests. It was held on September 7, 1995 when former Tamil Nadu chief minister and movie star Jayalalitha Jayaram hosted a reception banquet at her foster son's wedding in the 20 hectare (50 acre) grounds in Madras, India. The wedding is reported to have cost over 750 million rupees (US$23,299,162).


On May 23, 1988, Fleming Koch and Nina Tolgard, a Danish couple, made history by participating in the earliest documented underwater wedding ceremony. The remarkable event took place in Mauritius, where the couple, adorned in scuba diving gear, exchanged vows in the presence of a local priest and a select group of close friends and family. As they declared their love for each other, vibrant coral reefs and a multitude of colorful fish served as witnesses to their unique and memorable union.

In 2001, 34 couples from 22 countries got married simultaneously while 32.8ft (10m) underwater in Thailand, setting a world record. Every couple received waterproof wedding certificates — before taking off their oxygen tank mouthpieces to kiss.

The largest underwater wedding took place when 303 divers attended the marriage of Ewa Staronska and Pawel Burkowski at a flooded open mine pit at Jaworzno, Poland, in 2011. The bride, groom and priest — a licensed diver — used sign language and waterproof placards throughout the service.

FUN WEDDING FACTS

A woman in Torquay, England, spent £10,000 to repeat her daughter's wedding on November 26, 1988 because she didn't like the video first time around.

Despite Christians making up only 1.5% of the population of Japan, the majority of Japanese people are married in a Christian ceremony. By contrast, the traditional Shinto ceremony makes up only 1 in 6 Japanese weddings.

 In South Korea, the number of guests at a wedding is so important that "fake guest" agencies exist.


The global wedding industry was worth $300 billion as of 2016. The United States wedding industry alone was estimated to be worth $60 billion as of the same year. In the United States, the wedding industry employs over one million people throughout 600,000 businesses, and grows 2% each year.

1 comment:

  1. This is really informative. I am thrilled to know the history of marriage. These days, a wedding coordinator is the one who manages everything for us on wedding.

    ReplyDelete