26 Most Bizzare Wedding Customs from Around the World

Wedding customs might seem really strange in different countries. Of course every culture is different but it is really worth to know something about them. Especially customs that are connected with marriage and weddings in some countries and cultures might seem quite interesting. So let’s get know how do people get married around the world and things they do before, during or after the wedding ceremony that are specific almost only to them.

1. Bengali

* Practise connected with food are important while wedding ceremony for Bengali people. Some Bengali tribes practiced a custom where blood was drawn from the husband’s finger and mixed with betel and eaten by the bride.

2. Pygmy

* Pygmy man to marry his beloved one has to find among his relatives a girl willing to marry a brother or male cousin of his future wife. If he does so and have enough food to give he may have even more wives.

3. Chinese

* Before the wedding happens it is initiated by a series of three letters. First one is a request letter sent from the groom’s family to the bride’s family, as formal marriage request. Second one is a gift letter that accompanies the gifts of the groom’s family to the bride’s family shortly before the wedding. And third one is the wedding letter given on the day of the wedding, officially accepting the bride into the groom’s family.

4. England

* Some brides in England wear a penny in their shoe which should bring prosperity to their future lives as wives.

5. France

* In some weddings in France, after the reception, people who were invited gathers outside the newlyweds’ window and bang pots and pans. After a few minutes they are invited into the house for some more drinks in the couple’s honor, after which the couple is finally allowed to be alone for their first night together as husband and wife.

6. Japanese

* The Japanese bride-to-be may be painted pure white from head to toe, visibly declaring her maiden status to the gods.

* Dressing the bride is the important task for the bride is to change into several outfits throughout her wedding day. And her attire usually consists of an extravagant kimono, heavy make-up, a wig, and a head covering.’

* Taking the photographs of the bride, the groom, and their relatives are considered to be the essential part of the wedding day - it is like prevision of the couple’s future life.

7. Italy

* In Italy at the day of the wedding, the groomsmen try their hardest to make the groom as uncomfortable as possible by saying things like “Maybe she forgot where the church is.

* While in some countries blue is a color that brings good luck in Italy is green.

8. Poland

* According to the old tradition in Poland a groom arrives with his parents at the house of a bride just before the wedding ceremony. At that time both parents and parents-in-law give a young couple their blessing.

* One of oldest customs in Poland is preparing “passing gates” on the way to the reception for the newlyweds, who in order to pass have to give the “gate keepers” some vodka.

* The married couple is welcomed at the reception place by the parents with bread and salt. The bread symbolizes the prosperity, salt stands for hardship of life.

9. Scotland

* Typical for Scottish culture is that during the wedding ceremony the groom and much of the male bridal party and guests as formal wear use kilts.

* Scotland is a great place for marriage and wedding of young people. Especially for young English couples at the age of 16. People at this age can legally get married in Scotland without parents’ permission while in England the persmission is needed.

* The newly wed couple may only leave the ceremony to the sound of bagpipes.

10. Filipino

* Weddings held within the same year on the Filipino by two siblings, usually sisters, are frowned upon as it is regarded as bad luck.

11. Indian wedding (in general)

* The Hindu bride always wears red clothes, never white because white symbolizes widowhood in Indian culture.

* Marriage is a very sad moment for the bride’s relatives - traditionally the bride is supposed to permanently “break-off” her relations with her blood relatives to join her husband’s family.

* During traditional weddings bride’s hands and feets were covered with henna at so called tilak ceremony.

12. Greece

* One of most specific custom while Greek wedding is that two or three days before the wedding, the couple organizes a celebration called Krevati in their new home. In Krevati, friends and relatives of the couple put money and young children on the couple’s new bed for prosperity and fertility in their life.

* Typical Greek wedding includes usually 250-500 guest - not only family and friends of the wedding couple but mostly people that parents of young couple know, in more traditional weddings even whole villages. That is why it is common to have guests whom the couple has never met before.

* One of most famous tradition is the pinning of money on the bride’s dress.

13. USA

* A color scheme at the American wedding is often selected to match everything from bridesmaids’ dresses, flowers, invitations, and decorations.

* Tradition allows wedding gifts to be sent up to a year after the wedding date.

14. African-American

* Jumping the broom developed out West African Asante custom. The broom in Ashanti and other Akan cultures also held spiritual value and symbolized sweeping away past wrongs or warding off evil spirits. Brooms were waved over the heads of marrying couples to ward off spirits. The couple would often but not always jump over the broom at the end of the ceremony.