# Wedding

A wedding is a ceremony where two people are united in marriage. Wedding traditions and customs vary greatly between cultures, ethnic groups, religions, countries, and social classes. Most wedding ceremonies involve an exchange of marriage vows by a couple, presentation of a gift (offering, rings, symbolic item, flowers, money, dress), and a public proclamation of marriage by an authority figure or celebrant. Special wedding garments are often worn, and the ceremony is sometimes followed by a Wedding reception. Music, poetry, prayers, or readings from religious texts or literature are also commonly incorporated into the ceremony, as well as superstitious customs originating in Ancient Rome.

## Quotes

* WEDDING, n. A ceremony at which two persons undertake to become one, one undertakes to become nothing, and nothing undertakes to become supportable.
** Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911).
* For talk six times with the same single lady, And you may get the wedding dresses ready.
** Lord Byron, Don Juan (1818-24), Canto XII, Stanza 59.
* Is there anyone who thinks that the resolution can come later when it is really needed? So it is not needed then, not on the wedding day, when the eternal pledge is entered into? But then, later? Can he mean that there was no thought of leaving one another, but of enjoying the first gladness of their union-and so united, of finding support in the resolution? Then when toil and trouble come, and need, be it physical or spiritual, stands at the door, then the time is there? Aye, indeed, the time is there-the time for the resolved individual to muster up his resolution; but not just the time to form a resolution. It is true that distress and failure may help a man to seek God in a resolution; but the question is whether the conception is always the right one, whether it is joyful, whether it does not have a certain wretchedness, a secret wish that it were not necessary, whether it may not be out of humor, envious, melancholy, and so no ennobling reflection of the trials of life. There is in the state a loan association to which the indigent may apply. The poor man is helped, but I wonder if that poor man has a pleasant conception of the loan-association. And so there may also be a marriage which first sought God when in difficulty, alas, sought Him as a loan-association; and everyone who first seeks God for the first time when in difficulties, always runs this danger. Is then such a late resolution, which even if it were a worthy one, was not without shame and not without great danger, bought at the last moment, is that more beautiful, and wiser than the resolution at the beginning of marriage?
** Søren Kierkegaard, Thoughts on Crucial Situations in Life, (1845) p. 72-73.
* The Doctor: Ook, sorry, I've got a bit of a complex life. Things don't always happen to me in quite the right order. Gets a bit confusing at times, especially at weddings. I'm rubbish at weddings, especially my own.
** Doctor Who Blink, written by Steven Moffat
* She is your treasure, she must have a husband; I must dance barefoot on her wedding day And for your love to her lead apes in hell.
** William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew (c. 1593-94), Act II, scene 1, line 32.
* Cling closer, closer, life to life, Cling closer, heart to heart; The time will come, my own wed Wife, When you and I must part! Let nothing break our band but Death, For in the world above 'Tis the breaker Death that soldereth Our ring of Wedded Love.
** Gerald Massey, On a Wedding Day, Stanza 11.

## See also

* Marriage
* Husbands
* Wives
* Groom
* Groomsmen
* Bride

## External links

Wedding Day Sparklers – Event Sparklers, Sky Lanterns, and Wedding Accessories