Incorporate ethnic traditions during your family celebration

Adding ethnic touches to your wedding helps create a sense of family and unity that can easily be lost in the everyday details of planning a wedding. Keep reading for some of our favorite ideas...

Welsh Traditions:

• It's in the bouquet: A Welsh bridal bouquet usually contains myrtle while the bridesmaids carry myrtle in their bouquets as a symbol of love. According to Welsh tradition,  if the bridesmaid plants her myrtle and it blooms, she will soon marry.

Italian Traditions:

• In Southern regions of Italy, the couple often shattered a vase or glass at the end of the wedding day. The number of pieces represented the number of years they'd be happily married to one another.

• In Northern Italy, the groom brings the bouquet of flowers to the wedding so that the color and style of the bouquet is a surprise to the bride. This signifies a present from the grooms family to the bride.
  

Jewish Traditions:

• Traditional Jewish weddings begin with the bride and groom signing a marriage contract, called the Ketubah. The agreement states the expectations and duties of the couple once they are married. This ornate document will be framed and displayed in the couples' home.

•  A lively Israeli dance called the Hora is performed at the wedding reception. The bride and groom are lifted into the air on chairs by their guests and are celebrated as 'king and queen of the night'.

**Breezin Tip** Hire an ethnic band to perform music during your reception

Irish Traditions:

•  The Claddagh Ring is a popular as an engagement and/or wedding ring. The heart in the design symbolizes love longed to be shared with one's true love. The crown symbolizes undying loyalty and the hands symbolize friendship.
• Irish music at the reception - hire some traditional Irish dancers to give a demonstration

African Traditions:

• Pre-ceremony festivities might begin a month before the wedding with a spiritual reading. Elements of the actual ceremony may include a Libation (a prayer with an offering, usually water or liquor offered by an elder). This ritual calls upon and asks God's blessing and the blessings of ancestral spirits. The groom verbally seeks permission from the bride's mother to marry her daughter.

• Gifts are presented to the brides family symbolizing the ability of the groom to take care of his bride.