I now pronounce you...
September 10, 2009 1:47 AM   Subscribe

Marriages from around the World.
posted by hadjiboy (24 comments total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
Divorces around the world.

Marriage ceremonies can't replace a serious desire for two people to stay together.
posted by twoleftfeet at 2:08 AM on September 10, 2009 [1 favorite]


What about Klingons?
posted by GavinR at 2:28 AM on September 10, 2009


Marvellous. I always thought there must be some great traditions for weddings that should be more widely known, but lacking anyone to marry I never bothered looking further.
Anything similar for funerals?
posted by edd at 3:26 AM on September 10, 2009


*The Impressive Clergyman: Mawage. Mawage is wot bwings us togeder tooday. Mawage, that bwessed awangment, that dweam wifin a dweam... And wuv, tru wuv, will fowow you foweva... So tweasure your wuv.

Prince Humperdinck: Skip to the end.

The Impressive Clergyman: Have you the wing? ...and do you,Pwincess Buwwercup...

Prince Humperdinck: Man and wife. Say man and wife.

The Impressive Clergyman: Man an' wife.
posted by not_on_display at 3:47 AM on September 10, 2009


Marriage ceremonies can't replace a serious desire for two people to stay together.

In the same way that a plate of beans cannot replace ....

Nah, I give up: there's nothing that a nice plate of beans can't replace.
posted by Dr Dracator at 3:49 AM on September 10, 2009


I have never heard of nor witnessed a single one of the Finnish wedding traditions in about a decade. Sample size of about half a dozen weddings.

The above might be true for all I know, but none of the traditions I have seen repeated at every single Finnish wedding are mentioned...
posted by slimepuppy at 4:06 AM on September 10, 2009


...in about a decade of going to weddings.
posted by slimepuppy at 4:07 AM on September 10, 2009


"Now look at that, son. See all these images of marriages from around the world, from every culture and ethnic group all over the globe? There's a little lesson in these pictures for all of us: that no matter who you are, no matter where you live, deep down, we're all pretty much the same... and that, given that fact, we all tend to make the same tragic mistakes."
posted by koeselitz at 4:16 AM on September 10, 2009


Slimepuppy, sites like these emphasize every local "tradition" to have interesting content, rather than regurgitating the boring stuff. There are about a million American wedding traditions, but a lot of them are either regional, cultural (money dance, tacky or not?), or apocryphal. Everyone has that uncle or cousin who insists that ____ has to happen at the wedding.

Heck, between my best man's wedding and my own, I feel comfortable proclaiming that in America, it's traditional for the Justice of the Peace to read from notes held between the pages of a hardbound copy of the Lord of the Rings.

It's a very nice copy and looks very authoritative from afar.
posted by explosion at 4:16 AM on September 10, 2009


With a respectful nod to the cynicism of many of the comments above, I will humbly thank hadjiboy for this. Today my wife and I celebrate 21 years of marriage. So, this makes me happy! Actually, today most things make me happy.
posted by mmahaffie at 5:51 AM on September 10, 2009 [4 favorites]


And my wedding was a very traditional Greek- Orthodox wedding celebrated partly in Slovenian. In Potomac, Maryland.
posted by mmahaffie at 5:52 AM on September 10, 2009 [2 favorites]


I've never seen this: When a girl in Sweden is engaged it is customary for her to receive an engagement ring. Then, during the wedding ceremony the bride’s husband slips the wedding ring onto his new bride’s finger plus he slips a ring of motherhood onto her finger as well – meaning that a Swedish wife will wear three golden rings.

Data point though, despite being Swedish I have attended far more Danish weddings (boyfriends friends and family). I've been one of the girls kissing the groom, I've watched the groomsmen cut the toes off the grooms socks, I've heard the grooms deliver their speeches. (which would not be done in Sweden, where the father of the bride holds a speech.)
The best one still makes me misty, he simply explained how he met his bride, that day, their evening together and when she fell asleep in his bed before him. "and I thought.. In her dreams, that's where paradise is." (cue every woman in the room grabbing their napkins and discreetly wiping tears)
posted by dabitch at 6:14 AM on September 10, 2009 [1 favorite]


regurgitating the boring stuff

Some of the boring stuff that got cut out of the Finnish wedding traditions:

Stealing the bride and then forcing the groom the pay a ransom to get her back during the ceremony.
The first newlywed to fall asleep during the wedding night is the first to die.
The person who gets to call the shots in the marriage is the one who 1. Says "I do" louder at church. 2. Has the top hold of the knife/shovel used to cut the cake, or 3. Is the faster to stomp their foot down when the first slice of the wedding cake is cut.

(All of the above taken from the definitive wedding magazine/site in Finland [and from my mother/grandmother]. The World Wedding Traditions web site mistyped 'Ethnic' on the bottom frame so you'll excuse me if I don't take this particular company's word on my home country's traditions.)
posted by slimepuppy at 6:22 AM on September 10, 2009 [2 favorites]


"Ner-Ulr, Germany" should almost certainly be "Neu-Ulm", in which case it's in Bavaria (and just across the river from Baden-Württemberg). Also, none of my cousins had weddings that lasted three days.
posted by Slothrup at 7:02 AM on September 10, 2009


Whoa. Next time I'm getting married in Finland so the bride can wear a crown.
posted by mathowie at 7:12 AM on September 10, 2009 [1 favorite]


Malay tribe?
posted by TWinbrook8 at 7:27 AM on September 10, 2009


I think you mean wedding ceremonies?
posted by rahnefan at 8:00 AM on September 10, 2009


Whoa. Next time I'm getting married in Finland so the bride can wear a crown. (mathowie)

You know, after the headgear at the Katamari Damacy wedding, that crown looks positively demure.

Malay tribe? (TWinbrook8)

Yeah, that was really weird.
posted by ocherdraco at 8:20 AM on September 10, 2009 [1 favorite]


I used to perform wedding ceremonies as an "officiant" in Japan. Actually, I was called a "Catholic priest" (shinpu, in Japanese), but I preferred the term "minister". After weird quasi-stalking episode involving anonymous threats of legal action, our office made all of us part-time "nisei-shinpu" (fake priests) get ordained. That involved paying about $25 dollars to the "World Ecumenical Church" (it's actually a legitimate organization, with mostly Anglican and United Church ministers as members) ordaining me as a "lay deacon."

My job was to show up at privately run "chapels" to perform weddings. The chapels themselves were usually run out of a hotel or a conference center. There was an organ and a pulpit, pews, and, of course, a giant crucifix. I made about $180 a wedding, and I could usually squeeze in four weddings on a weekend.

Generally, I had to show up at the chapel about an hour before each wedding. Since the chapels were usually in hotels, I spent a lot of time in back passageways and services elevators at Japanese hotels, and I even learned hotel-lingo (whenever you show up for work at a Japanese hotel, you alway say, no matter what time of day, 'Good morning!' or 'O-Hayo-Gazaimasu!').

I had to put on my robe and cassock, and I had a bible that I used to store my crib notes for the ceremony. I had a little script, and I had to walk the bride and groom through the ceremony before the wedding - they rehearsed everything for about 15 minutes before the guests came into the chapel. It was a great opportunity for me to perfect my Japanese keigo, or polite speech.

During the rest of the week, I worked in our small town as a teacher, and the schoolboard had a strict "no moonlighting" policy. The chapel where I mainly worked catered to construction workers (I did a lot of shotgun weddings for 20 year-olds) and, of course, teachers.

I was a little freaked out about getting caught; once, I married a teacher I kind of knew from another school in the district. He looked at me really closely, and said "Don't I know you? You teach at XX school, right?"

I just said no, I come from Barcelona or whatever. Luckily, all foreigners look alike, so I was safe, or so I thought.

Another time I was marrying some more teachers. One was the brother of my best friend (he was from NZ)'s wife (she was from a prominent teaching family in the town where we lived). They thought it was awesome that I, a teacher, was marrying their teacher daughter to a teacher man in town.

The guests came in. Then I noticed that my boss, the head teacher of the school (kind of like a senior operations manager who could get me fired) was in the audience. I started to sweat. I was caught. And then I heard this voice: "Hey! KokuRyu! Hey! Over here! It's me!"

He was waving at me, smiling, glad to see me. So I guess I was safe, and it became and open secret at work. My real last name sounds like "Simpson", and so my nickname became "Mr. Shinpu-son".

Western weddings are popular in Japan because they're romantic and are less stressful than "traditional Shinto" Japanese weddings, which were held in the room next door to the chapel where I worked at the hotel.

In fact, I learned that the "Shinto style" Japanese wedding is hardly traditional at all, and was instead a concept developed in the late 19th century, a time of extreme chauvinism and romanticism, as a "native Japanese" alternative to European and western-style weddings, which are themselves fairly new inventions.

In the past in Japan, weddings were a contract (and they still are - the ceremony means nothing, really; the only thing that counts is signing the registry at city hall) between families.
posted by KokuRyu at 11:10 AM on September 10, 2009 [2 favorites]


I love Uchikake and wish that traditional weddings were more common in Japan; I understand they are cost-prohibitive, though.
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 12:16 PM on September 10, 2009


One of the best parts about being a Peace Corps Volunteer was getting to go to parties. Ok, some days, it was the worst part as well.

For Mongolians in the countryside, the wedding is a little less western. Friends and family take turns crowding into the couples' wedding ger (yurt), eating meat, drinking vodka, and singing with the husband while the wife serves all of her guests.

For Kazakhs (or those living in Mongolia), everyone crowds in a giant ger, sing to greet the new couple, and finish the party by eating meat.

(links to my photos on flickr)
posted by soupy at 1:21 PM on September 10, 2009 [1 favorite]


Nthing the WTF reaction to "Malay Tribe". Not to mention that they chose Singapore for a Malay wedding. W. T. F. CBC?

I'm going to write an article on poutine and how it's prepared in its native setting of Des Moines, Iowa.
posted by ooga_booga at 5:39 PM on September 10, 2009


I didn't have to get out of my car to get married. Go USA!
posted by jessamyn at 5:43 PM on September 10, 2009 [1 favorite]


Needs more gays and atheists.
posted by Saucy Intruder at 7:50 PM on September 10, 2009


« Older Harmony Korine's Trash   |   Oh dear god, the drill actually spins Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments