13 Different Wedding Traditions From Around The World

If you’ve been to enough weddings in the western world, you can think that pretty much all weddings look the same.

While there are some variations depending on individual taste, they mostly follow a set format: brides wearing white, bridal parties in matching colours, something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue, flowers, ceremony, reception, cake cutting, bouquet toss, bride and groom leave for their honeymoon.

But around the world, there are lots of traditions and customs, as well as superstitions, that you might not know about. Visually in some countries, weddings just look plain different, full stop. Here’s a guide to some of the most interesting wedding traditions from around the world.

1. Mexican Wedding Traditions

A Mexican bride carries two bouquets and leaves one behind at the church for the Virgin Mary. Mexican weddings also include a lasso of rosary beads or orange blossoms being made – representing happiness and fertility – which are then looped around the bride and groom’s necks while they exchange their vows.

2. Chinese Wedding Traditions

Chinese brides have not one but three wedding dresses! The first dress they wear is a traditional qipao or cheongsam, which is an embroidered frock that’s usually red. Red is said to be a strong, lucky colour in Chinese culture. The next dress that she’ll wear is usually a big, white, puffy ball gown not unlike a dress you’d see at an Australian wedding, because modern Chinese women like to replicate Western trends.

The third dress she changes into is usually a gown or cocktail dress in her choice of colour.

3. The Congo Wedding Traditions

When we think of weddings, we think of really happy days filled with smiles and laughter. But if you are a bride or groom from the Congo, you might have a completely different experience. Congolese couples aren’t allowed to smile at all on their wedding day. If they do, it is thought that they aren’t serious about marriage.

4. Poland Wedding Traditions

Forget rice and confetti: when Polish couples exit the church, it isn’t uncommon for them to have handfuls of loose change thrown at them.

5. Peruvian Wedding Traditions

The Peruvians have a tradition that’s not unlike the bouquet toss, only it involves the wedding cake. No, they don’t throw it. Rather, they attach charms to ribbons that are hidden inside the layers of the wedding cake. Each single lady grabs a ribbon and pulls before the cake is cut. One of the ribbons will have a fake wedding ring at the end of it, and whoever chooses that ribbon is said to be the next to get married.

6. Germany Wedding Traditions

The night before a German couple gets married, they will host an informal gathering of family, friends and neighbours where they smash china dishes up into bits. Breaking china is supposed to symbolise that while crockery might break, their marriage never will. Afterwards, the couple works together to clean up the mess, representing how they will work as a team when they are married.

7. The Philippines Wedding Traditions

In Philippine culture, it’s considered bad luck for a bride to wear her gown before the wedding day. It’s also bad luck if the bride gets to the church before the groom!

8. Japanese Wedding Traditions

In a traditional Shinto ceremony, a Japanese bride will wear white from head to toe. This includes her kimono, hood and makeup. The white is said to denote her status as a maiden, while the hood hides her “horns of jealousy” that she feels about her mother-in-law.

9. Kenyan Wedding Traditions

A Massai tradition in Kenya is for a bride’s father to spit on her head and breasts. She then has to walk away and not look back, otherwise, it is said that she will turn to stone.

10. Mauritius Wedding Traditions

In Mauritius, a bride doesn’t go on a diet before the big day – she does the complete opposite. Brides in Mauritius try to put on as much weight as they can before their big day – the extra kilos are seen as an ideal of beauty and a symbol of her new husband’s wealth.

11. Jamaican Wedding Traditions

Jamaican villagers line the street to get a look at the bride. If they don’t like how she looks, it is customary for them to call out negative comments. And if the majority of them are critical, she has to go home and make a second attempt at looking good! Harsh!

12. Indian Wedding Traditons

Depending on the region and the religion, an Indian wedding can last anywhere from several minutes to several days! Pink or red wedding dresses are often favoured by Indian brides. Married women who live in the north of the country can be identified by a red dot in the middle of her forehead. In some parts of India, the day before the wedding, a bride will have intricate patterns called a mehndi drawn on her hands and feet using henna.

13. Ghana

Ghana weddings are often very colourful with each family wearing its own cloth pattern that features on the bride and groom’s outfits.

What other wedding traditions around the world do you know?