Western bride customs add a joyful meld of customs and lively challenges to a couple’s trip into marriage, from breaking dishes to sawing through logs https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/emily-ratajkowski-and-the-burden-of-being-perfect-looking. Family and friends gather outside the bride’s home to tear numerous porcelain dishes to bring good fortune to the couple’s wedding. One like pre-wedding tradition is known as Polterabend. The partners is therefore required to remove all the fragments themselves, reiterating their commitment to working jointly through any challenges they may encounter in the future.

A post-wedding meeting known as the la rotie in Italy is incredibly physical and profane, but it has a strong connection meeting irish women to the country’s agrarian tradition. After the bride, a group of friends abduct the bride and groom, who then transports them to a table or restaurant where they serve the newlyweds with a libation of champagne and chocolate served in a compartment bowl. The couple will subsequently share a bowl of vegetable dish, which represents married life’s daily closeness.

Although it may seem common to most people to pour grain or petals on newlyweds, in Poland, wheat and barley are also sprinkled on the handful to wish them both good health and fecundity. Before the wedding ceremony, the couple is also sprinkled with salt and bread, which symbolize the necessities of life, so that they will always have what they need to survive. Additionally, it is customary for the couple to step on vodka bottles that are displayed at the venue’s “passing gates” to wish them good fortune and abundance.