Heritage Wedding Traditions

We are starting the day with a Russian tradition, where the groom comes to my parents' house to "buy out" the bride. In modern times it's more symbolic and usually ends up with the bridal party making the groom answer questions about the bride or come up with complements for her and "buy out" his way to the bride with candy/liquor to please the bridesmaids and brides family. We are thinking of doing like a quest like game for him with maps and hints and treasures to find.

During the ceremony we want to do a handfasting, as we both share a love of Celtic mythology and music and love the symbolism it has. And apparently in the Slavic cultures something similar is done too, where they bind the hands with a rushnik (like the one you step on like Tori mentioned but you use this one to tie the hands together).

At the beginning of the reception we are doing the bread and salt traditional Russian meeting. It is usually done by the mother of the groom as a way to welcome the bride into their family, so she is to bake a round bread that is decorated with natural/flower/bird patterns and present it to the groom and bride after they are legally married. And we get to take a bite out of the bread and apparently whoever takes the biggest bite will be the head of the family.

Another tradition that we might not do is where the maid of honor and best man go around during the reception and collect money from the guests - moh for the firstborn being a girl, and the best man for the first born being a boy. And so whoever collects more is apparently who the first child of the couple will be.

Another one I'd like to do but probably won't happen, is the bride and groom go to the hospital and ask for details on the last child born - like the child's gender/weight/height and that also apparently is supposed to speak to the firstborn of the couple

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I never thought about starting any traditions until your post actually! FH is less into this kind of stuff, so I think it would be difficult to convince him lol.

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Thank you! Any new traditions you and FH want to start?

That's so interesting! FH and I don't share any traditions, so nothing for us lol.

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Awe amazing So cool!

View quoted message The rest of the wedding isn't really delving into the celtic theme, but I wanted to pull in elements in the ceremony to honour my FH and his family. We actually met online through YouTube! We became very close friends over 2 years before I came to visit him. I asked him to be my tour guide of the country, and (7.5 years later) the rest is history

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OMG!!!!!!!!!! Celtic harp music is quite possibly my favourite music to relax with, it soothes my soul lol. Love it! What about dress and decor and such? Did you and FH meet in Ireland? When I went to Ireland for the first time, I was SURE that I was going to have a PS I Love You romance, sadly was not meant to be ha ha but I can't complain .

View quoted message I've always loved Celic history and mythology as well! It's probably part of what made my FH so attractive to me I also forgot to mention that we are having a harpist play traditional Irish music during the ceremony.

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I totally agree!

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Thanks! I told FH we should practice though because I don't want to look silly in front of everyone. I am not coordinated at all, so knowing me, I will end up on my bum or something lol. Free entertainment for our guests at least haha.

Oh wow! That is a lot of really neat heritage traditions in your ceremony. I love it. I love that being Canadian usually means such a mix of cultures to have in our lives.

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Amazing! I love handfasting in ceremonies. I've always been a fan of Celtic history and mythology. Love that you are incorporating both cultures

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If we did it, we'd have to bring our own to not be charged by the venue lol

Incorporating a tradition into the wedding is unique and special to remember especially when it comes to the fact you have another culture involved.

Our wedding, there was 2 of 3 cultural traditions included from my side that made it special.

I'm glad to see weddings come together with traditions.

This is soooo cool, I've never seen this done!

We're incorporating quite a few rituals in the ceremony - it's a religious Melkite Catholic ceremony, conducted in a mix of English and Arabic, and we will be wearing the bridal crowns for a portion of the ceremony, which is part of his Lebanese heritage. For my side's Ukrainian culture, we're placing a rushnyk, a hand-embroidered cloth, at the bottom of the altar, to step on after the ceremony.

My FH is 100% Irish, so we're thinking of including a handfasting in the ceremony. I'm 25% German and 75% Italian (50% Sicilian), so I want to include a number of classic Italian songs to dance to at the wedding, including La Tarantella.

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That is so neat! I love that you are incorporating that.

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WOW! That is some awesome heritage you have.

I have a bit of Scottish as well but its quite far removed so I can't say its really apart of my life. Anyway, the smashed plate sounds great. That is what got us on this whole journey as FH REALLY wants to smash a plate hahaha.

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It is!

I know it as an African American custom, and wikipedia says it's done in other cultures as well.

We'll be using a Guyanese pointer broom for added sentiment.

Me and my FH both have German heritage too! My FH is also part Russian and I'm part Scottish/English/Irish.

We haven't thought about incorporating German or other traditions, I like the idea of the Baumstamm Sagen, I also like the Polterabend - where the couple smashed a plate and cleans it up the night before.

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I have never heard of jumping the broom? Is that exactly as it sounds?

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Awe! I love the crowning tradition, that sounds so lovely

When you mentioned your greek heritage, it immediately brought to mind the Full House episode featuring greek wedding traditions. Lots of dances!

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Ooh I have never heard of this! Colourful socks sound fun. But maybe not a fun experience for the eldest sibling haha.

Our welcome dinner will also be a Kwe Kwe, which is a Guyanese tradition that happens the night before the wedding. It will be hosted by my Jamaican-Canadian father.

My FH is American, so we’ll be jumping the broom at the end of the ceremony.

My fiancé is half Greek! We’re not being pressured or asked at all to include any Greek traditions but I genuinely want to.
What I’m most excited for is doing a crowning at our ceremony. There’s two white flowery crowns attached by a ribbon. The crowns are passed over the bride and groom’s heads 3 times to represent the father, son and holy ghost and because odd numbers are lucky since they cannot be evenly divided. Then the bride and groom walk around the alter 3 times to represent their journey together.
They also do a lot of dancing. There’s the pig dance where people in traditional dress dance around at the reception with a cooked pig on a tray and you throw money on the tray, there’s dollar dances where the bride and/or groom dance and you throw or pin money to them. Then there’s just circle dances with different steps to Greek music (which we’ll be doing and it doesn’t involve money).
By coincidence we are abiding by the tradition of having an odd number in our wedding party (again, odd=luck).
Then there’s fake spitting on the bride and groom for luck, we’ll see if anyone does that lol.
Greek people also have huge bridal showers. They invite 100+ people and have played sit down meals at a banquet hall. Though my Greek FMIL is throwing my shower we’re just having finger foods, cheesy games and maybe like 30ish people.

The only tradition I am aware of, in French-Canadian culture, only includes the bride/groom's oldest unmarried siblings. Historically, since the eldest was going against societal expectations, by not getting married first, they had to pay a tax or a fine. Today, they have to dance in their socks until the newlyweds are satisfied of their performance, at the wedding reception.

The socks are usually colourful and accessorized with bells. Guests might also throw money at the sibling, which would go towards the newlyweds.

Needless to say, since my FH and his family are not French-Canadian, this tradition will not be taking place hahaha.

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Lol with the prices of veils these days- I don't know anybody who would be okay with that 😂

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Ha! Love it.

The kidnapping the bride came up for us as well, FH seems to be stoked on that idea. Me, knowing our groomsmen, not so much LOL. Another one that came up was the ladies dancing under the brides veil and then tearing bits of it up to take home? Anyway, I am borrowing my best friends veil and she said absolutely not ha ha (which I wouldn't even have considered this of course). So fun though!

Well... I'm Ukrainian... so...

The main traditions I am aware of involved kidnapping the bride and paying a ransom for her... so I think we will pass on that one...

One that we may do is add stepping on the Rushnyk. (so basically stepping on a towel before we get married.) Whoever steps on it first is known to wear the pants in the family and always have the last word. Most men let their soon-to-be wife step on it first, but I doubt my FH would do that He is almost always right anyway and totally wears the pants in the relationship.