Marriage Ceremonies

Germany:
When it comes to overcoming trials and hardships, the Germans know how to make that possible when it comes to marriage. For Germans, the idea of marriage is just as sacred as any other culture, but not with all same customs of course. To start it all off, the bride and groom create a newspaper that details and depicts all about the bride and groom. This newspaper is then sold at the receptions and helps to pay for some of the wedding. Next, there is one lucky person who is appointed the official of going door to door and getting to hand out the special wedding invitations. To accept or RSVP, they pin a ribbon to the official’s hat and then he is invited in to have a drink the party. For the wedding, the brides are known to wear tiaras or a sort of crown on their head rather than the traditional tiara as in many other cultures. Going back to trials once again, the bride and groom saw a log in half after the wedding to exhibit that they have overcome hardships to be with each other. Now all the fun begins as the party makes their way toward the reception. Once they make it there, the real party begins when the groomsmen kidnap the wife and take her to a pub for her new husband to find her. Once he manages to find her the whole party moves to the pub and continues the party once again. To finally end off the night in a bang, and allow the new couple to get over one last obstacle, the friends of the wedding party have one more thing up their sleeve. They go to the room and fill it with balloons, hide alarm clocks, or anything else to give the bride and groom one last trial to face.


Filipino:
In the case of the Filipinos, the groom’s family gets the lucky honors of being able to pay for the wedding. The groom’s family are the primary structures of weddings in the Filipino culture, as the grandparents also take place by being the sponsors of the wedding as well. When it comes to wedding time, not only the bride wears white as in most cultures, but so does the groom as well. Now the killer part for the wife is that she is not allowed to try on her shiny new dress until the day of the wedding as it is considered a bad omen and could destroy the marriage. The groom is a little more casually dressed as he plainly wears a white, un-tucked shirt over a pair of black slacks. Another benefit of being the wife in the Filipino culture is that she is presented with 13 gold pieces by the groom to show his dedication and love for her. Once it is all said and done they both have a cord draped around their shoulders to show an infinite bond and veils are draped to express unity in the new couple’s life. To express their strength in their faith the bouquet is offered up to a saint possibly rather than just being thrown to the unmarried women of their culture. As well as that one candle for unity is lit by to separate candles to represent the coming together of the two new families. Just as you thought it couldn’t get any more different, rain is actually smiled upon when it comes to the wedding day. Raindrops are considered lucky as they may bring prosperity to the new couple in their future life to come.