Weights and measures

The earliest known uniform systems of measurement seem to have all been created sometime in the 4th and 3rd millennia BC among the ancient peoples of Egypt, Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley.

One method of calculation in Biblical times was the area which a yoke of oxen could plough in a day (Isaiah 5 v10).

In ancient Rome land distances were measured in paces, one pace being defined as two steps, or approximately 5 feet (152 cms).

Ancients hired "bematists" to measure the long distances, They were trained to count steps while walking between locations and could measure hundreds of miles with 95% plus accuracy. Eratosthenes used one to calculate the circumference of the Earth within 15% in 240 BC.

The word mile comes from the largest unit of land measure used by the Romans, the "milia passuum" meaning 1,000 paces. The Roman army, marching through uncharted territory, used to place a stick in the ground every 1,000 paces (where each pace was two steps).

Units of measurement, Palazzo della Ragione, Padua By Fabrizio Pivari

A 'butt' was a medieval unit of measure for wine. Technically, a buttload of wine is about 475 liters, or 126 gallons.

English miles varied until 1593 when an Act of Parliament laid down that: "A mile shall contain eight furlongs, every furlong 40 poles and every pole shall contain 16 foot and an half".

James Watt needed to convince sceptics to ditch their draft horses and buy his steam engine. To prove its superiority, he measured a horse walking in ­circles to turn a grindstone in a mill. He multiplied distance it walked by its 180 pounds of pulling force and came up with a new measure: horsepower.

In pre-revolutionary France, there were up to 250,000 different units of weights and measures, with variations across almost every province, district and town. The French Academy of Sciences in 1791 advised adopting the metre as the name for a universal unit of length.

English mathematician-physicist Christopher Wren had earlier recommended, as a standard unit, the length of a pendulum producing a half period of one second. A metre was defined by The French Academy of Sciences  as one ten-millionth of the distance from the North Pole to the Equator via Paris. That worked out at about 3mm longer than Wren's suggested pendulum. The French then constructed a metal bar the length of which would serve as a standard metre. Actually the job was too precise for French engineers and the work was carried out in London.

An example of metrication in 1860 when Tuscany became part of modern Italy. By Assianir

On December 10, 1799 France became the first country to adopt the metric system as its system for weights and measures. The law that established the metric system was called the Loi du 19 frimaire An VIII, which was passed by the French National Assembly. The law defined the metre as one ten-millionth of the distance from the North Pole to the Equator passing through Paris. The metre was also defined as equal to the length of a platinum bar that was preserved in the National Archives in Paris. The metric system was designed to be a universal system of measurement that would be easy to use and understand. It is now used in most countries around the world.

The US may have adopted the metric system in the early 19th century if pirates hadn’t kidnapped the French scientist sent to help Thomas Jefferson persuade Congress to adopt the system. The scientist,  Joseph Dombey, was taken prisoner on the island of Montserrat, where they hoped to obtain a ransom for him. Unfortunately for the pirates, and for Dombey as well, he died in captivity.

If Thomas Jefferson's decimal-based system had been adopted, 1 mile would equal 10,000 ft, an inch would be divisible by 10, and 1 cubic foot would equal exactly 1,000 ounces.

The metric system was legalized by the U.S. Congress for the standardization of weights and measures throughout the United States in 1866. The legislation legally protected use of the metric system in commerce from lawsuit, and provided an official conversion table from U.S. customary units.

On May 20, 1875, representatives from seventeen countries signed the Metre Convention. The treaty created the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM), an intergovernmental organization under the authority of the General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) and the supervision of the International Committee for Weights and Measures (CIPM), that coordinates international metrology and the development of the metric system.

The first General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1889 defined the length of a meter as the distance between two lines on a standard bar of an alloy of platinum with ten percent iridium, measured at the melting point of ice.

In 1960, a more precise definition was of a metre adopted based on radiation wavelengths in a krypton atom.

The former Weights and Measures office in Seven Sisters, London. By Nico Hogg 

In 1959, specific values for the international yard, avoirdupois pound and derived units (e.g. inch, mile and ounce) were adopted after agreement between the U.S.A., the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth countries. It was agreed that an inch, once defined as the length of three corns of barley, was 25.4mm.

At the seventeenth General Conference on Weights and Measures on October 21, 1983, the length of a metre was redefined as the distance light travels in vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second.  This redefinition of the meter was a significant advancement in metrology, as it made the meter a fundamental unit of length based on a natural constant, the speed of light. This definition is also more precise and reproducible than previous definitions, which were based on physical artifacts such as meter bars.

On November 16, 2018, the 26th General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) voted unanimously in favor of revised definitions of the units kilogram, ampere, kelvin and mole. The new definitions came into force on May 20, 2019.

The reason why an Air Canada flight ran out of fuel mid flight in 1983, NASA lost its Mars orbiter in 1999, and a roller coaster car derailed on Space Mountain in 2003 were due to confusion in working with both imperial and metric systems.

"Le Grand K" is a hunk of platinum kept in a vault in a Paris, that was the international prototype for a kilogram of weight. This changed in 2018, and a kilogram's weight is now defined based on the laws of the universe so as to avoid a physical object that decays over time.

FUN WEIGHT AND MEASURES FACTS

An acre was historically the amount of land tillable by one man behind one ox in one day. Poor farming technologies and the need for farmland to be close to the river means that acres were traditionally long and narrow.

The unit of measurement "smoot" is named after an MIT prank on Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity pledge, Oliver Smoot, whose body was used to measure the Harvard Bridge in 1958. One smoot is 5 foot 7 inches and length of the Harvard Bridge is 364.4 smoots.

Earth's circumference around the poles is almost exactly 40,000 kilometres or 21,600 (i.e. 360 × 60) nautical miles, because it was used to define those units of measurement.

The longest unit of length is the yottametre, which is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 metres.

In Tibet distances used to be measured by the number of cups of tea that would need to be drunk to get there.

The Sami people of northern Finland use a measure called Poronkusema: the distance a reindeer can walk before needing to urinate.

Myanmar (Burma) doesn't use the metric system, but it doesn't use the imperial system either, instead, they have their own system of measurement called the Burmese system.

We use "lbs" as shorthand for pounds in English because of the Latin phrase "libra poundo" meaning “a pound by weight”. The libra part of the phrase meant both weight or balance scales. The Latin usage was shortened to libra, which naturally was abbreviated "lb". We adopted the pound part from pondo, yet kept the abbreviation for libra.

The average adult weight worldwide is 62.0kg (136.7lb). The US average is 80.7kg (177.9lb). In the UK, the average figures are 83.6kg (13.16 stone) for men, 70.2kg (11 stone) for women.

Historically vague measurements "dash, pinch, smidgen" are mostly real cooking measurements that have generally agreed-upon amounts. A dash is ​1⁄8 teaspoon, a pinch ​1⁄16 teaspoon, and a smidgen is ​1⁄32 teaspoon.

Source Daily Express

Weightlifting

Weightlifting is a test of strength by lifting weights attached to both ends of a metal pole (barbell).

There are two lifts, the snatch and the clean and jerk. The aggregate weight lifted at both is taken into consideration.

Pixabay

Competition to establish who can lift the heaviest weight has been recorded throughout civilization, with the earliest known recordings including those found in Egypt, China and ancient Greece.

Weightlifting formed part of the Ancient Olympic Games.

In the 19th century weightlifting was a popular attraction at many of the leading circuses.

Weightlifting was introduced as a sport in mid nineteenth century and held its first world championship in 1891. The weightlifters were not categorized by weight at this time.

The first Olympic Games of 1896 included weightlifting. It featured in the Field event of the predecessor to today's track and field or athletics event.

The actor who played "Oddjob" in Goldfinger, was a Japanese-American who won a Silver weightlifting medal at the 1948 Olympics.

Soviet weightlifter Vasily Alekseyev set 80 world records between 1970 and 1977 more than any other athlete in any sport. He received bonus funds every time he set a world record by the Soviet government (Soviet athletes were funded by the state); so he made it a point to gradually increase his world records by 1.1 pounds or 0.5 kg.

Weightlifter Chua Koon Siong fainted for seven minutes after smashing his face with the barbell during his first lift at the 1981 Commonwealth Weightlifting Championship. Still bleeding, he completed his remaining lifts and won the gold medal with a final lift of 137.5 kg.

As early as 1986, there were official world championships awarded to women weightlifters such as Karyn Marshall and Judy Glenney However, it was not until the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney that an official Olympic competition for women was introduced.

Source Europress Encyclopedia

Weever fish

The weever fish is a small fish with poison glands on a dorsal fin and gill cover that can give a painful sting.

Weever fish are long, growing up to 37 cm (14.5 inches), and are mainly brown in color.

Echiichthys vipera

Weevers are unusual in not having swim bladders, as do most bony fish, and as a result, sink as soon as they stop actively swimming.

The weever fish has eyes in the top of its head and spines on its back are full of venom.

They are generally buried under the sea bed with their eyes and venomous dorsal fin poking out of the sand. There it waits to snatch prey as it comes past, which consists of shrimp and small fish.

The weever fish are nine extant species of fishes of family Trachinidae. Most species in this family are restricted to the eastern Atlantic (including the Mediterranean). The only exception is the T. cornutus from the southeast Pacific.

Most human stings are inflicted by the lesser weever, which habitually remains buried in sandy areas of shallow water.

Lesser weever fish. By Nabokov at English Wikipedia, 

There is one registered death by a weever fish – when an English fisherman was stung repeatedly in 1933, off Dungeness.

Most victims are stung in the hours before and after low tide (especially at springs), They peak in August, but this is probably the result of the greater number of bathers.

If you are stung, immerse the wound in water at 40C (104F) to disperse the poison.

Source Daily Mail

Josiah Wedgwood

EARLY LIFE

The pottery designer and manufacturer Josiah Wedgwood was born on July 12, 1730 in Burslem, Staffordshire, England.

Josiah Wedgwood by George Stubbs, 1780

He was the eleventh and last child of potter Thomas Wedgwood (d. 1739) and Mary Wedgwood (née Stringer; d. 1766),

By the age of nine, Josiah was proving himself to be a skilled potter. However a bout of smallpox limited his strength in his leg and ultimately left him unable to work the foot pedal of a potter's wheel.

CAREER

Wedgwood originally worked in the family pottery business. In 1754 he became a partner of Thomas Whieldon, and began to devise improved wares.

In 1759 Wedgwood opened a factory at Burslem and, a decade later opened one near Hanley, which he called 'Etruria'. There he produced his famous unglazed blue or green stoneware decorated with white Neo-Classical designs, using pigments of his own

Wedgwood developed a brilliant understanding of different clays and kilns, which meant he could devise desirable new types of china to tempt customers (who at the time were just getting hooked on an exotic drink called tea.)

Wedgwood tea and coffee service, 1765 By Valerie McGlinchey,

Wedgwood's thousands of rigorous experiments led to the creation of revolutionary new types of pottery, which changed the direction of ceramic design and production in England. Under Wedgwood's management, ceramics escaped from the confines of the dining room and began to be used as decorations through style-conscious homes.

By 1763, he was receiving orders from the highest levels of the British nobility, including Queen Charlotte. Wedgwood convinced her to let him name the line of pottery she had purchased "Queen's Ware", and trumpeted the royal association in his paperwork and stationery.

From 1768 to 1780 Wedgwood was in partnership with Thomas Bentley, who introduced advanced marketing techniques to the company. Together, they pioneered many of the marketing strategies used today, including the satisfaction-or-money-back guarantee on the entire range of his pottery products. Wedgwood took advantage of his guarantee offer to send his products to rich clientele across Europe unsolicited.

In 1773, Empress Catherine of Russia ordered the Green Frog Service,from Josiah Wedgwood's company. 944 pieces were ordered, 680 for the dinner service and 264 for the dessert each bearing her green frog emblem. On them were painted different English landscapes all enamelled in sepia. The most celebrated earthenware service of all time, the majority of the pieces can still be seen in the Hermitage Museum.

Plate from the Frog Service for Catherine II of Russia,

In the latter part of his life, Wedgwood's obsession was to duplicate the Portland Vase, a dark blue and white glass vase from the first century BC. For three years he worked on the project, eventually producing what he considered a satisfactory copy in 1789.

PERSONAL LIFE

Wedgwood was a member of the Lunar Society, a group of important scientists, philosophers and entrepreneurs. Other members included the engineer James Watt, the financier Matthew Boulton the chemist Joseph Priestley and the freethinking poet, Erasmus Darwin.

Together with his friends in the Lunar Society, Wedgwood worked for the abolition of slavery. Wedgwood produced medallions asking for the end of slavery featuring the words "Am I Not a Man and a Brother?" underneath the seal for the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade.. These medallions became very popular. Thousands were given away at anti-slave trade meetings around Britain. People gave them to their friends, set them in a ring, or tucked them into their hat bands. 

Wedgwood's concern over social welfare led him to build a village for his workmen at Etruria.

Etruria Hall, the family home, was built 1768–1771 by Joseph Pickford near Wedgwood's new recently built, Etruria works. It is now part of the Moat House Hotel.

Josiah Wedgwood's House, Etruria. By Steven Birks, 

He had eight children of his own with Sarah Wedgwood, his third cousin, whom he married in January 1764.

DEATH AND LEGACY

Josiah Wedgwood died, probably of cancer of the jaw, at 64 in Etruria, Stoke-on-Trent on January 3, 1795.

Charles Darwin's mother, Susannah Wedgwood, was the daughter of Josiah Wedgwood. The famous naturalist himself married Emma Wedgwood the youngest of seven children of Wedgwood's son, Josiah Wedgwood II.

Wedgwood's company is still a famous name in pottery today (as part of Waterford Wedgwood). "Wedgwood China" is sometimes used as a term for his Jasperware, the colored stoneware with applied relief decoration (usually white), still common throughout the world.

Source Europress Family Encyclopedia 1999

Wedding dress

A wedding dress is the clothing worn by a bride during a wedding ceremony.

The origin of wedding dress dates back to when Christianity spread to Europe in Roman times. The wedding ceremony was held in the church and a bride wore a wedding dress.

The veil worn by a bride originally symbolized the bride's virginity, innocence, and modesty. The veil can be traced back to ancient Roman times when it was a complete head-to-toe cover. It was later used as her burial shroud.

In ancient times, the traditional color of bridal gowns was red.

Green has long been a symbol of fertility and in the 1400s was the preferred color of choice for wedding gowns.

During the American Revolution, many brides wore red wedding gowns as a symbol of rebellion.

When Queen Victoria married her cousin Prince Albert of Saxe- Coburg and Gotha in 1840, brides of the time preferred bright colours. However, the queen surprised everyone when she wed in white lace — and began a tradition which continues to this day.

Queen Victoria re-wore her wedding veil on a number of occasions, including her funeral.

Portrait painted by Franz Xaver Winterhalter, 1847, of Victoria wearing her wedding clothes

Charlotte Brontë married her father's curate, the Reverend Arthur Nicholls in 1854. Charlotte wore a white muslin wedding dress with delicate green embroidery and a lace trimmed bonnet. It was said she looked like a "snowdrop".

Bereaved Victorian girls married in black bridal gowns.

Because Britain had not yet completely recovered from the devastation of World War II the then-Princess Elizabeth required ration coupons to buy the material for her wedding dress when she married Philip Mountbatten in 1947. The gown was designed by Norman Hartnell.

African American designer Ann Lowe made New York socialite Jacqueline Bouvier's wedding dress twice for her marriage to Massachusetts-born junior senator John F. Kennedy on September 12, 1953. A flood ruined the first ivory silk taffeta gown ten days before the date. Lowe hired extra staff to finish on time, barely avoiding bankruptcy. When asked who made the dress, Jackie said, "A colored woman."

When Lady Diana Spencer married Prince Charles in 1982 her wedding gown became one of the most famous outfits in the world. It was embellished with 10,000 pearls and a 25-foot train, which was badly crushed during the coach ride to the ceremony.

Wedding dress of Lady Diana Spencer

The world's most expensive wedding dress was a £7.4 million ($12 million) diamond-encrusted creation designed by Martin Katz Jewellers and Renee Strauss. Adorned with 150 carats worth of diamonds, it was created for a bridal show in 2006.

When Mariah Carey married Tommy Mottola in 1993, her wedding dress was an ivory-silk duchess satin gown designed by Vera Wang, with a 8.25 m train and matching satin pumps.

Twenty-three years later, Mariah Carey got engaged to Australian billionaire James Packer. The wedding dress she planned to wear was a gown by Valentino costing $250,000. Later in the year, the singer broke up her engagement and she dramatically set her gown on fire in her " I Don't" music video.

Catherine Middleton's dress from her 2011 wedding to Prince William had a price tag of £250,000 ($434,000). Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen designed the classic gown, which had a 2.7  (8.8 ft) train and hand embroidered individual lace flowers.

Wedding cake

The top layer of a wedding cake, known as the groom's cake, is traditionally a fruit cake because it will save until the first anniversary.

Originally, rather than being eaten, wedding cake was thrown at a bride as a sign of fertility.

In 1703, a young London baker named Thomas Rich fell in love with his employer's daughter and asked her to marry him. He wanted to make an extravagant cake for her special day, so he drew on the spire of St Bride's Church, on Fleet Street in London for inspiration. It was the first-ever multi-tiered wedding cake.

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert's wedding cake from 1840 was 9 feet around (274 cms), weighed 300 pounds and was 14 inches (35.5 cns) high. It was not only topped with statues of the royal couple, but also featured a copy of one of her Majesty's beloved dogs.

The oldest still existing wedding cake was baked in 1898. The four-tier cake now resides in the Willis Museum in Basingstoke a town in southern England .

When Lady Diana Spencer and Prince Charles got married in 1982  the couple had 27 wedding cakes, with the main one costing £56,000 and standing at over 5 feet tall. It was decorated with Charles and his family’s coat of arms, the couple’s initials, and flowers. The cake took a massive 14-weeks to make.

The biggest ever wedding cake officially recognized by Guinness World Records was created by the chefs at the Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville, Connecticut, USA, on February 8, 2004. It weighed a whopping 15,032 pounds (6,818 tons), equivalent to the weight of 5 adult elephants and towered at an impressive 17 feet (5.2 meters); this cake would have been taller than most houses. It consisted of a magnificent 12 tiers, each meticulously decorated with intricate designs. While not made for an actual wedding, it was created as a promotional display for the Mohegan Sun Casino and served to guests over a 3-day period.

A bakery in Chester, England, created in 2013 what is reportedly the world's most expensive wedding cake, valued at $52.7 million. The eight-tiered confection is decorated with more than 4,000 diamonds.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle bucked tradition by having a lemon and elderflower wedding cake, instead of the standard fruitcake. Among the ingredients: 500 eggs, 200 Amalfi lemons, 44 pounds of butter, and 10 bottles of elderflower liqueur.

Source Weddedwonderland

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.

The average number of guests that attend a wedding in the United States is 189.

Here is a list of songs often played at weddings.

Here is a list of songs that describe a wedding.

Source NASB Life Application Study Bible, Second Edition, The Book of Answers by Barbara Berliner, March Hares and Monkeys' Uncles by Harry Oliver.