24 Worldly Odd Wedding Traditions And Customs
As a Maui Wedding Photographer, I am always amazed to learn about different wedding traditions. There are so many unusual customs that are so amazing. I am hoping you’ll get a kick out of reading this article about some wonderful Wedding Traditions and customs that are pretty neat.
Enjoy!
Nicole
There all kinds of odd and unusual stories and customs all over the world when it comes
to weddings and marriages. Some are for good luck, some are just traditional and some are
downright weird. Of the many that are out there, here are 24 wedding oddities in our world.
Good luck getting your wedding photographer to capture these.
1. A young bride would often wear her hair loose and long to symbolize youth and
innocence.
2. During leap year, it was considered proper if a woman proposed to a man.
3. More popular than the “Wedding March” and “Bridal March,” Pachelbel’s “Canon In D”
is requested by many more marrying couples.
4. When Elvis Presley proposed to Priscilla, her engagement ring included a 3 1/2-carat
diamond that was surrounded by a detachable row consisting of smaller diamonds.
5. To secure him to perform at a wedding, Sir Elton John once charged 2 million British
pounds ($3,203,000. in American dollars).
6. The six wives of Henry VIII, were also related to one another.
7. Due to a mix up in 1920, the best man accidentally married the bride. Best man, Albert
Muldoon, walked up with the groom up to the altar, and then proceeded to stand to the
groom’s left side. The priest seeing Muldoon on the left posed the questions to him and
not the actual groom. Not knowing, Muldoon answered the questions, thus marrying
the bride. When the actual groom went to sign the register, only then was the mix up
discovered. A new wedding quickly took place.
8. Back in 1976 Jamnene Swift, a Los Angeles secretary, officially married a 50-lb rock.
9. Wanting a clean start, whenever she remarried, movie actress Joan Crawford changed all
the toilet seats throughout her home.
10. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, as of February 27, 2011, Americans
Herbert and Zelmyra Fisher hold the record for the longest marriage on record at 86
years, 9 months and 16 days. They married on May 13, 1924 and stayed married until
Herbert’s death on February 27, 2011.
11. One bride cancelled her wedding after finding her fiancé wearing her wedding dress
and in the midst of a passionate embrace with his best man on the eve of their wedding.
Needless to say, she cancelled the wedding.
12.
13. In 1995, a French bride used the cake knife, that had been used to take the
first cut in their wedding cake, and used it to stab her new husband just a few
hours after the wedding reception.
14. Casanova was known to have had many lovers in his lifetime, but things took a turn
when he asked his girlfriend’s hand in marriage. Leonilda’s mother screamed and fainted
upon the news. As it turns out, Leonilda’s mother was a former lover of Casanova, and
Leonilda was actually his daughter.
15. In modern times, Saturday is the most popular day of the week to get married on, but an
English folklore legend has it, that Saturday is actually the unluckiest day to wed.
16. The bride is considered lucky if a cat sneezes on the day prior to her wedding.
17. If the bride’s wedding ring is dropped by the groom during the ceremony, the marriage is
seen as being doomed.
18. It’s a good sign if you see a rainbow, or a black cat, on the day of your wedding.
19. Philip I Augustus, the King of France, decided part way through his own wedding that he
did not care much for his new bride to be. Therefore, instead of stopping the ceremony,
he opted to have his new wife, Ingeborg, immediately locked up after the ceremony. She
lived out the rest of her life in custody.
20. At a Czech wedding ceremony, peas, and not rice, are thrown at the newlyweds.
21. The largest known wedding attendance took place in 1993 in Jerusalem where 30,000
people attended a Jewish wedding. Mazel tov!
22. In Holland, it is customary to plant a pine tree in front of a new couple’s home. The tree
symbolizes both fertility and good luck.
23. In order to confuse the evil spirits, traditionally brides and grooms in Denmark would
cross-dress.
24. To give the couple time to relax, it is customary to have the bride’s family in Egypt do all
the cooking for the first week after the wedding.
25. Since Egyptian men thought it was considered “distasteful to deflower their new brides,”
they gave that particular chore to their hired servant.