American Wedding Customs

The traditional American wedding is solemn and warm, not extravagant. The wedding ceremony is held at the woman's home, and only parents, relatives and closest friends are invited to attend, and the expenses are paid by the woman's parents. Participate in the wedding to send some appropriate gifts, such as cooking utensils or tableware and other practical items, spend very little. Americans do not pay attention to the value of the gift, but the importance of friendship.

For historical reasons, the United States is known as the "melting pot of nations", the majority of white people, blacks, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Arabs, Japanese, Filipinos, Koreans, Chinese, Indians and so on. Americans from complex sources, the wedding form is very different.

The traditional American wedding is solemn and warm, not extravagant. The wedding ceremony is held in the woman's home, and only parents, relatives and closest friends of both sides are invited to attend, and the expenses are paid by the woman's parents. Participate in the wedding to send some appropriate gifts, such as cooking utensils or tableware and other practical items, spend very little. Americans do not pay attention to the value of the gift, but the importance of friendship.

American young men and women have many opportunities for contact, free to come and go, talk about love. The development of young men and women's feelings to the extent that they can be married, more and more unmarried couples before the wedding, together to the law firm to sign a "marriage contract". The main content of this contract is related to the two sides of the money and property issues, and even after the marriage to give birth to a number of children, how to share child support, each take charge of what the family affairs, as well as the employment of a number of servants, etc., have made detailed provisions. Some contracts even stipulate conditions for divorce in advance, lest there be conflicts.

Before the wedding, unmarried couples invite their close friends to a party where they are congratulated on their new life. This party, most of the host to prepare some drinks and a few dishes, friends also have to bring some of their own wine and dishes to. American food is colorful, beautifully packaged, easy to carry, as long as you spend some money, you can easily prepare a sumptuous feast. At the party, the hosts and friends to eat and drink without restraint between the laughter, eat and drink enough to sing and dance together. This kind of party, which is a farewell to the bachelor's life, costs little money, has a warm atmosphere, and appears to be a close relationship between the guests and hosts.

On the day of the wedding, the bride and groom, accompanied by representatives of the two sides of relatives and witnesses, came to the district court for marriage registration. A judge reads out a pre-drafted congratulatory speech to the newlyweds, and the bride and groom each take an oath. The witnesses then sign the marriage certificate, indicating that the marriage is legally valid and recognized by the relatives of both parties and by society. Finally, the bride and groom exchange wedding rings and place them on each other's ring fingers.

After the marriage registration ceremony, the newlyweds drive to the woman's home for the wedding banquet. Parents, relatives and friends of both sides are there to welcome them. When the newlyweds appeared at the wedding banquet, the groom was dressed in a tuxedo, and the bride's attire could be depicted in the words "new, old, borrowed and blue". "New" refers to the bride's white wedding clothes are newly made, meaning that the start of a new life; "old" refers to the bride's head draped in the wedding veil is used by their mother, said that they will never forget their parents, especially their mother's upbringing; "borrow" is the groom dressed in a dress, the bride's attire can be "new, old, borrowed, blue" a few words to depict. "Borrowed" refers to the bride holding a handkerchief borrowed from a close girlfriend, signifying that although she has become a daughter-in-law, she will not forget her friends when she was a girl; "Blue" refers to the bride's body draped with a blue-colored ribbon, symbolizing her own loyalty to love. The "blue" means that the bride is wearing a blue-colored ribbon, symbolizing that she is loyal to love.

The specifications of the wedding banquet and the type of food are based on the bride and groom's cultural traditions, as well as the bride's family's favorite and economic conditions. Most American wedding banquets are simple and affordable, without ostentation. For the guests to eat are steak, ham, sausage, seafood, cooked thin vegetables and cut into large sections of cold vegetables, slices of bread, cheese and so on. The food was placed on a long table in the center of the hall. At one end of the table are single-use cups, plates, knives and forks. Guests in turn pick up a set of tableware, pick their favorite food on the long table, three or two get together to eat and talk, or take turns walking to the newlyweds to say some words of blessing to them, the atmosphere is relaxed and pro Zhengzhou wedding planning cut. A corner of the hall, there is a wine table, above the beer, wine, brandy and other kinds of wine and other drinks. Americans drinking pay attention to etiquette, drink what kind of wine with what kind of cup, can not mess up the rules and make jokes. Guests choose a favorite liquor or other beverages, service personnel to add wine, see what cup you use to add what kind of wine. American wedding banquet, there are two kinds of dishes are generally not missing, because these two kinds of dishes are generally loved by Americans. One is a fruit or vegetable salad and the other is roast suckling pig.

In the middle of the banquet, the newlyweds cut the cake. The wedding cake is colorful, and traditionally, the bride and groom hold knives together to cut the cake, first giving each other a piece of cake, and then cutting the cake into countless small pieces for the guests to enjoy. Guests ate the cake, the bride stood in the center of the hall on a chair, a bouquet of flowers to the unmarried girls thrown. It is said that whoever gets the bouquet will be the next bride. The cake-cutting ceremony ends and the wedding reception continues.

When the banquet lasted more than four hours and the bride realized that there was little to talk about and that the enthusiasm for conversation had waned, she intentionally turned the crowd's attention to the gifts that had been given to her and her groom by their friends. She took out the gifts and opened them one by one for the guests to see, and from time to time she made a few compliments, by which she also expressed her gratitude to the givers. At once the guests were clamoring to see and comment on the gifts. The atmosphere of the banquet was warm again.

At the end of the wedding banquet, the newlyweds said goodbye to their guests, who sprinkled them with grains of raw rice and wished them many children and grandchildren in the future. The newlyweds drove away in a warm atmosphere, and the whole process of the wedding came to an end.

After the wedding, the newlyweds traveled somewhere for their honeymoon. Today's Americans honeymoon gap is very large, mainly depends on the newlyweds time, hobbies and the groom's economic conditions, the American custom is the newlywed honeymoon travel expenses borne by the man. In the United States, it can be said that time is money, so rarely see the newlyweds really sweet play a month.