Foreign Marriages In Britain

In Britain today, there are 180 different nationalities, the majority of whom have some sort of traditional wedding ceremony and supporting them is an army of businesses, including - Photographers, dresses, shoes, hairdressers, cakes, invitations, rings.

As a couple's nationality is not recorded on the marriage certificate it is hard to know how many of the 240k weddings each year are immigrants but some Essex wedding seamstresses gave their statistics which said that the brides coming to their shop for fittings were 40% British English and 60% foreign.

Many foreign couples will have a civil ceremony at a registry office first - all that is required is proof of identification and an address - but the bride must understand her vows, so there may need to be an interpretor in attendance. Then this is followed by a traditional ceremony for their national culture.

Hindu Wedding ceremonies To maintain the proper Indian wedding traditions, there are up to thirteen symbolic rituals involved in the greeting of the groom and his family by the bride's family through to the final blessings on the married couple.

The most well known is the marriage knot, where the bride and groom are joined together by a piece of cloth which is tied to the bride's dress and the groom's scarf - or just placed over the shoulders of the bridal couple, followed by the taking of steps around a sacred fire.

Romanian Wedding Traditions As the Romanian bride sets out for the church after being picked up by her future husband, tradition says that the guests must be fed from an huge loaf of bread. Then there is dancing and then they all leave for the church.

In some parts of Romania it is traditional to kidnap the bride and hold her to ransom during the feast after the wedding. Then, once the ransom has been paid, the guilty party have to consume their prize - invariably large glasses of alcohol.

Jewish Wedding Traditions At a Jewish wedding, the bride traditionally walks around the groom three or seven times when she arrives at the Chuppah. This symbolises the 3 virtues of marriage: justice, righteousness and loving kindness or the Biblical interpretation that 7 is synonymous with perfection or completeness.

After the bride has been given the ring, or at the end of the ceremony (depending on local custom), the groom breaks a glass or sometimes a lightbulb because it is thinner and makes a better noise. He crushes it with his right foot and then the guests shout "Mazel tov!" ("Congratulations").

One explanation of this custom is that it is a reminder that despite the joy, Jews still mourn the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem.

The Horah is the name given to the circle dance that is often done at Jewish weddings. A well known Horah dance song is Hava Nagillah.

Turkish and African Marriage Traditions In the Turkish community, the wedding season peaks in October with two or three every week in the UK. In Turkey, weddings usually take place in villages where there is no orchestra so for thousands of years they have had just a drum and a flute and that tradition goes on for marriages in the UK.

For Africans, the drum rhythms speak too and a wedding is a once in a lifetime event for Africans so they want it to be the best. Traditional attire and music to represent what Africa is all about.

Brazilian Wedding Traditions Rain and the sharing of sweets are both regarded as good fortune at Brazilian weddings and the honeymoon will be funded by guests paying money to cut small strips from the tie of the bridegroom.

However they celebrate, we wish all the bridal couples a happy and prosperous life together.