There are many wedding rituals that are a very important part of the wedding itself, one of these being the wedding dress. Women would spend many weeks, sometimes even many months looking for that perfect wedding dress. It must be the perfect look and style. Women usually look for the most beautiful white wedding dress. This, however, has n

The honeymoon is probably the wedding ritual that people know the least about. The honeymoon is the first vacation taken by a newly married couple. The word "honeymoon" comes from a medieval custom in northern-European countries. For one month (moon) after the wedding ceremony the couple drank special "mead", or wine made from honey; therefore, honeymoon. The ancient origins of the customs have disappeared, but apparently about eighty five percent of all marrying couples still go on a honeymoon, if only for a few nights. This is a wedding ritual that is becoming less and less important.

The maid of honour is still used today for much the same reason, but was not always used for such a reason. In very early societies, many fears and taboos surrounded a young woman about to be married. Because she was considered highly vulnerable to evil spirits, she had to be closely watched by other woman of the tribe and actively avoided by all the men (Kirschenbaum & Sternsrud, 1974). Many tribes isolated a bride-to-be in a hut some distance away from the village, where she might be interned for as long as a month. This served as a purification rite and kept the male members of the tribe from supposed danger. The maid of honour supplied the bride with food and attending to her other needs. It was believed that if demons were in the air, the bride was vulnerable, the friend was not, and it was her duty to protect the bride. Essentially today, the bride, like the groom, turns for support to a close friend or relative. The maid of honour as well as the best man is there for today support for support.

ot always the case. Women also did not always take so much time to find the most perfect dress. Women did not have very much money to spend on a dress that would only be worn once, so they would pick out their nicest dress that they already owned. Women also did not look for white as the colour of their dress. Wearing a white wedding dress to be used only once for a wedding ceremony is a tradition that has only been around for about one hundred and fifty years. Brittany made the white wedding dress popular in 1499 (Family Education Network, Inc., 2000-2002). It was not until this time that white was seen as the traditional colour of the wedding dress. White is seen as a colour that symbolizes youth and purity, this is one of the reasons that white has stayed around the longest. When you get married you are saying that you want to spend the rest of your life with this person, so white symbolizes the beginning of this new life that you will be starting. You want to go into this new life with the purest love and the want of being youthful, so using the colour white has stayed the traditional colour. But it was not always seen as the colour of the wedd

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Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)