Another Kind Of Wedding

video entry for a Taco Bell wedding contest. They won and beganplanning a tacolicious wedding in the Taco Bell Cantina's "chapel" in Las Vegas, Nevada (a city quite known for strange sights).

Another Kind of Wedding

The wedding is a formal and sometimes informal ritual for humans ever since we occupied the earth. It's called marriage. Even the caveman is depicted in cartoons dragging his mate into his cave by her hair. Did this really happen? Was this the first marriage ritual?

Today, many weddings are highly organized. Party-life, merging two people into one union as husband and wife, with hundreds of relatives and friends in attendance. A major catered affair. Usually a religious ceremony of sorts.

Wedding banns: In olden days, the placing of wedding banns was the norm. It was a public announcement of a marriage that was posted in church. A way for all the parishioners to wish the couple a happy and fruitful marriage (fruitful was a euphemism for lots of children).

In modern times, wedding banns are elaborate announcements, with photos in many cases appearing in the New York Times (usually a kind of society event). And then there's a sort of private wedding banns. That's when the mother of the bride calls her mah jong or bridge club members (really?).

Then, in the can't wait department, there's the elopement. And the wedding banns would be in the form of a note left at the front door ("Out to see the judge. Be back after two weeks in Niagara Falls. Will call.") That takes place after the future bride descends a ladder.

Wedding bans: Sounds like wedding banns but is a different kind of announcement. It's when the mother of the bride tells her estranged sister that bringing her, "taking him everywhere German shepherd" to the reception is a no-no. A ban. Or when the bride tells her future husband's hippie brother that he can't wear torn jeans, a vulgar T-shirt and flip flops to the synagogue.

There's also another kind of wedding band. And that's a sound of a different kind. It's when a 6-piece amped up group (a band) turns the volume up as the older folks turn off their hearing adis. They just sit, nod and grin as the band rocks on. And even if they're stone deaf, it's just possible they might hear again when the decibel level resembles a jet plane take off.

Then the bride's parents might tip the bandleader to play songs from the big band era that they can dance to (save the Macarena for later when everyone feels loosey-goosey). Not to be outdone, the orthodox parents of the groom tip the bandleader to play more hora music (for the uninitiated, the hora is the traditional dance performed at a Jewish wedding. Sort of a macarena with yarmulkas).

With that out of the way, I would ask you to indulge me as a writer's prerogative to publicly announce a wedding banns, the marriage of my granddaughter Lauren to Brian. Also to assure family members that no one will be banned from attending the affair if invited (well, maybe no torn jeans).

Weddings are an ancient cultural practice that has great meaning for its participants. However, couples in the United States have been holding another kind of wedding ceremony for the purpose of renewing their wedding vows. There has been little research on this ritual, prompting researchers to reflect on what occurs when couples renew their wedding vows, and what the various forms of the vow renewal ritual accomplish for the couple and people in their social network.

There is a dearth of information on the renewal of wedding vows. The research that is available was done in the United States (Braithwaite and Baxter 1995). Like wedding ceremonies, vow renewals are social events in which personal feelings and commitments between partners are witnessed by friends and family. The ceremonies are held in churches, public secular spaces (e.g., hotel or hall), or residential homes.

Participants in the ceremonies enact a variety of roles in the event: helping with planning and preparations, serving as members of a traditional wedding party (e.g., ushers or bridesmaids), performing as part of the renewal ceremony (e.g., performing a song or reading a poem), serving in a witness role; and, in the case of mass ceremony renewals, coenactor of vows. Many of these vow renewal ceremonies take the form of a traditional wedding; an observer would be hard-pressed to tell the difference between a wedding and vow renewal event. Some couples reunite their original wedding party; other couples have their adult children serve as attendants.

The first type of renewal ritual is initiated by the couple or their family. Although a couple may renew their wedding vows at any time during their marriage, the majority hold this ceremony as a way to commemorate a milestone wedding anniversary, such as their twenty-fifth, fortieth, or even fiftieth anniversary. Several different motivations or goals are reflected within the couple-initiated ritual. Couples use the ceremony as an opportunity to publicly express their love and commitment to one another. Other couples pay homage to their marriage by giving themselves the "real wedding" that they never had. For some, their original wedding ceremonies were often found lacking in emotional and/or material ways. These include couples who had eloped, had limited financial means when they married, or married during wartime, and they opt for a large, formal renewal ceremony with all the traditional wedding trimmings (e.g., formal clothing, flowers, and wedding cake).

A second type of vow renewal ritual is one that reflects relational repair, most often after a separation or severe relational challenge. The couple chooses to renew their vows to mark a turning point in their relationship, such as signifying the successful resolution of a crisis in the relationship (e.g., after an extramarital affair) or marking the transition to another stage in the relationship's history (e.g., after the children have left home).

It was ten in the evening when she fell face down on their shared bed, exhausted. All the questions about the upcoming wedding were making her sick. Was it a good idea to agree on an extravagant wedding where would be almost two hundred people and the most annoying team ever? Absolutely not.

Steve was with Fury the whole day, discussing old and upcoming missions and giving reports about the team. He had to track the progress the team kept making, to fix issues if Fury asked him to. It had to be done so that the team would be able to focus on the wedding and enjoy some time off.

The team was sitting in the living room, all dressed up as Steve and Y/N asked them to. The couple asked them to have a lovely formal evening where they would peacefully discuss their opinions on the upcoming wedding. Also, a calmer party was more fitted. Every second day, Tony would throw some psycho party and it was getting annoying.

Steve and Y/N came out of the elevator, him holding her hand like she was a princess - well, she sure did look like one. Captain was wearing a dark blue tux with a white tie and a white rose pinned on the left side of the jacket. Y/N on the other hand was wearing a long A-line wedding dress of bright white colour, covered in lace. The dress had long tattoo laced sleeved. Her hair was curled and pinned on the right side of her head, decorated with white flowers without a veil. She was breathtaking.

Another Kind of Wedding (2017) brings together a family that does not get along for the oldest son's wedding. Now that everyone is altogether to celebrate love, they have to unpack why they don't get along.

The arranged marriage wisdom is: love comes later, you learn to love the person you are married to, a marriage is built on love but also compromise and adjustment, give and take. I have tried finding love and come up empty. I will marry and find love, because this is the closest I have felt in a long time to giving it another try.

Three days before our wedding, the day my fiancé lands in Ahmedabad, an earthquake of 7.7 magnitude devastates much of Gujrat, his home state, killing twenty thousand people, toppling buildings and collapsing schools and houses, disrupting communication and travel. I hope the earthquake is not a foreshadowing of our married life to come. I am twenty-seven. He is thirty-one.

After the wedding, our first night is spent on the overnight train to Bombay to apply and obtain my American visa. I stand in line for a couple of hours outside the embassy, on the pavement with other newly married brides, students, parents, all seeking visas, all seeking a new life, a new direction, a reunion. He stands across the busy street till I go inside. When I come out a couple of hours later, he is still there, waiting patiently. We have been married for twenty-four hours.

We have a thirty-two-hour airplane ride ahead of us. The two of us, exhausted from wedding festivities and visa procedures and endless stream of visiting guests, two marriage receptions, one in Indore, one in Ahmedabad, sleep the first leg of the journey.

Your big day is just starting! Check out all things Brit + Co Weddings, and follow us on Pinterest for more beautiful + creative wedding inspo. 041b061a72