Weird Wedding Traditions

As of October first, Hubby and I will have been married forty-two years. In a row.

In honor of the occasion, I thought I’d share a few bizarre marriage traditions from around the globe.

In the history of my husband’s home community, the story goes of a young bride who was kidnapped by friends—all in good fun—following the wedding ceremony. The so-called friends decided it would be hilarious to use a tractor’s front-end loader to lift the young woman to the top of a haystack and leave her there. They hadn’t figured on the bride chipping one of her front teeth. It’s all fun and games until someone loses a tooth.

The custom, known in America as a shivaree, was common in the American Midwest farming communities prior to World War II and varied from town to town. Further digging tells me it probably found its roots in France, where the word “charivari” is a French folk custom in which the community gave a noisy, discordant mock serenade by pounding on pots and pans, at the home of newlyweds. The couple was then expected to host the gathered crowd, providing food and drink.

Mauritania is a country in northwest Africa where one marriage custom could not be more opposite from ours. In preparation for her wedding, a bride intentionally tries to gain weight, even going so far as to attend a “fat camp” where she packs on the pounds, disregarding her own health. Why? Because carrying extra weight on your wedding day is considered good luck.

If you are a groom in South Korea, your friends may not allow you to leave until they remove your socks and shoes, tie your ankles together, and beat the soles of your feet with a dead fish or bamboo sticks. Locals believe this practice, called Fаlаkа, makes the groom stronger in his marriage and family life. If you decide to try it, you should know the fish of choice is dried Yellow Corvina.

If you are a bride or groom in parts of rural Scotland or Northern Ireland, you might be subject to a custom called “blackening.” One or both members of the couple have all manner of disgusting slop poured over them—the stickier the better—before being loaded into the back of a truck and paraded around town. The reasons behind this are not clear, but I can’t help wondering if it involves vengeful ex-boyfriends and ex-girlfriends. At least the event occurs several days or weeks before the wedding, so there’s plenty of time to clean up.

If you’re planning a more rustic wedding, you might want to try an old German tradition known as “baumstamm sägen,” the ritualistic sawing of logs by the bride and groom. Sawing a log in tandem symbolizes the couple’s ability to work together in accomplishing tasks that take collective strength and a lot of endurance, as most marriages often do. I think I like that one!

In a recent conversation with a wise friend who happens to be divorced, I heard her make an intuitive statement along these lines. “People should buddy up for life, no matter what. That way you always have someone to help you through the thick and thin. You can ease each other’s old age. Marriage was a really good idea.”

Yes, it was. Maybe not the crazy customs, but the spirit of it for sure.

“Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up.” (Ecclesiastes 4:9)

A Disarming Anniversary

As of next week, I have been married for 36 years, half of them to a right-handed man and half to a left-handed one. I suppose you could argue it’s the same man. Like greatness, some people are born left-handed and others have left-handedness thrust upon them.

Many families can name a day that slashed a giant mark across their life’s timeline, forever dividing “before” from “after.” For us, it was September 29, 1995: the day Jon lost an argument with a piece of farm machinery and subsequently, his right arm. 

Once, after we described this before-and-after concept in a group setting, a friend nodded knowingly, then embarrassed herself by calling the event “The Great Cut-Off.” We all laughed wildly and learned laughter really can help.

To prove it, Jon’s been known to accuse long-winded people of talking his arm off.

I once told my husband he’d make a great magician because he has nothing up his sleeve. 

And when he took too long in Polo Park one day, I threatened to leave him behind, reasoning he could hitchhike home since he still had a thumb.

I know. Be quiet. 

Did you know there are actually advantages to being left-handed? Everyone knows you can’t sit left of a lefty at the dinner table, or you’ll bump elbows. Smart southpaws use this to their advantage to gain a spot with more space. 

Apparently, many more words can be typed solely with the left hand than with the right.

And southpaws also have an easier time writing in Hebrew because it’s written from right to left. How handy is that?

However, finding advantages to being one-handed proved a greater challenge. But if he ever visits Belarus, where clapping is outlawed because dissidents use applause as a form of protest, it is unlikely Jon will be arrested. Good to know.

This photo appeared with an article in our local paper four months after the accident.

Two days after his accident, we celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary in the hospital. I remember falling asleep that night with the words of our marriage vows running through my head: “For better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, ‘til death do us part.” I particularly focused on the “for worse…for poorer… in sickness” sections. In the following weeks and months, all three would surface, but death had not parted us yet and for that, I was grateful. Neither of us knew there would be ugly days ahead when we would wish it had. I won’t lie to you—it sucks. 

But the God who promises to walk with us through the dark valleys keeps his word. In those early days, a peace settled over our home that can only be the result of hundreds of prayers raised on our behalf. We gained a new reverence for life, more gratitude for community, and a deeper perspective on what matters. We grew closer as a family and felt ourselves carried along by a sweet spirit. Supportive friends and strangers blessed us in countless practical ways. I like to think our kids are more kindhearted people because this happened to us.

Would we get Jon’s arm back if we could? In a heartbeat.

 

But it’s been my bittersweet privilege to observe a man grow in his faith when he might have scorned it forever. Where he could display bitterness, I’ve seen him instead demonstrate compassion toward fellow strugglers because everyone carries their burden of seen and unseen pain. I’ve watched him tackle the daily challenges of one-handedness in a two-handed world with patience, determination, courage, and grace. I am certain I would not have done as well, and I am proud of my lefty.

Happy Anniversaries, Jon. And safe harvest, everyone.

Get Me to the Church on Time

     I was late for my own wedding.

     October 1, 1977. Back then, you simply couldn't get married without fluffy plastic flowers running the length of your car and a giant pair of spray-painted, Styrofoam wedding rings on top. It was the law, I think. The monstrous, glitter-glued diamond on one ring would show the world we spared no expense to host a classy shindig. My dad's gold Newport Chrysler looked mighty spiffy bedecked with those blue and white flowers and elegant, Herculean jewelry.

     Dad was driving my maid of honour, my flower girl, and me from my sister's house to the wedding just seven miles down the highway in said car. We left in plenty of time. What we didn't know was that whatever held the decorations in place was not doing its job adequately. As Dad sped up, the flower streamers started flailing in every direction like tentacles on an octopus. Dad stopped every once in a while to reattach wayward decorations, while the bride and her maid each kept a hand out the window to hold things in place. If Dad drove about ten miles an hour, they stayed put, so we crawled along. Why he didn't rip them off and stuff them in the trunk is beyond me. Respect for the wedding decoration police, I suppose. Or maybe he wanted to make sure we got our money's worth out of those fancy rented adornments. Or, perhaps Dad just figured they were important to his little girl.

     Meanwhile, a church full of guests waited. Key players began to wonder if the bride had chickened out. The bride's mother worried about what they'd do with all the food. The preacher hoped the unused candles could be used in the next day's church service. The groom considered heading back to the field to complete the silage-cutting he'd begun that morning. And every unattached guy there wondered how soon would be too soon to move in on the bride. Okay, I may have made that last one up.

     Thankfully, they didn't go ahead without me. We eventually arrived and proceeded with our I do's, our sluggish parade through town, and our receiving line of hugs and advice from aunties and uncles. The Carpenters' song, We've Only Just Begun played its role in there somewhere, another requirement of a 1970s wedding.

     Over the years, we have joked about the irony of my being late for that event. Of the two of us, it was the groom who tended to be late for things, both before and after that day. But 34 years later, this team is still hitched. Guess there's truth in John Dyer's poem:

Life is a race, where some succeed,
While others are beginning;
'Tis luck, at times, at others, speed,
That gives an early winning.
But, if you chance to fall behind,
Ne'er slacken your endeavor;
Just keep this wholesome truth in mind:
'Tis better late than never! 
 
Happy Anniversary to the man who has hung in there with me all this time!

And now for the really funny postlude. After writing this story and sending it off to the newspaper for my weekly column, I decided to post it here, along with an actual photo of the wedding car. When I found the photo, I discovered we didn't have giant wedding rings at all, but wedding bells! Here's proof of what 34 years can do to one's memory: