What customs did you include?

I'm in a weddingy mood today (due to helping with a friend's wedding), so I thought I'd ask. What cultural customs did you include in your wedding? For example, my cousin's husband smashed a glass during their ceremony.

[justnmary]

We had a very simple and plain Lutheran wedding. We had a unity candle but that was about it.

[Heather]

I'm Scottish, Mike is Irish & Italian. We had my friend who is also Scottish, perform our ceremony in his dress kilts. We had a Celtic reading, too.

This is a family custom, but right before the ceremony my Mom passed down a ring of my Grandmother's that was meant for me. It was my something old and blue. Not really a cultural tradition unless you want to count the fact that my Grandparents were from Scotland.

I also had a bag piper outside of the ceremony location as people came in.

At the end of the night we had the DJ play Good Luck to the Barley Mow and everyone sang along if they could keep up!

[NovemberGal]

Originally Posted by Heather

At the end of the night we had the DJ play Good Luck to the Barley Mow and everyone sang along if they could keep up!

That must have been fun if people had been partaking of the pint pot during the evening!
Here's the half gallon, quart pot, pint pot, half a pint, gill pot, half a gill, quarter gill, nipperkin and the brown bowl...and that's not even half of it!

We didn't include any particular cultural traditions. DH is half Italian and we had the reception at an Italian restaurant, but that wasn't why. We just like Maggiano's.

[Heather]

Originally Posted by NovemberGal

That must have been fun if people had been partaking of the pint pot during the evening!
Here's the half gallon, quart pot, pint pot, half a pint, gill pot, half a gill, quarter gill, nipperkin and the brown bowl...and that's not even half of it!

It was great! Mike was going to sing it himself, he knows it by heart, but were just a little too tipsy for that song. We had Guiness on tap though!

[wynelle]

Clan colors in the ties/cummerbunds for the men, in the scarves for the women, as well as wrapped around the stems of the flowers

Clan pin that has been passed mother to daughter for several generations and which happened to include a sapphire and an aquamarine (for old and blue, and technically borrowed since I had given it to my daughter when she married)

Celtic reading

Pipers

p'nt glasses with our initials engraved

Invitations included the explaining of the gathering of the clans (the three parts--the gathering, the celebration and the leave-taking)

[ohiobride]

I know it's not strictly a Brethren/Mennonite custom, but we had congregational singing in our service.

[purple]

We used a set of renaissance vows/ceremony we adapted for our own wedding. We also includded claddaghs on just about everything which we both wore as our promise rings before engagement.

[Rare Breed]

Having communion together was our "Christian" cultural custom. Other than that, nothing really. It was a very powerful spiritual moment for us both. I'm glad we included that.

[SerendipityCrafts]

Our vows were traditional and the first thing that we did, after pronounced husband and wife, was to serve communion to our family and friends. Aside from those two elements, everything else was pretty much non-traditional.

[SerendipityCrafts]

Originally Posted by Heather

I also had a bag piper outside of the ceremony location as people came in.

Ohhhhhhhh I so wanted to do that! It's not that I forgot but, after adding a soloist and all the readings etc. I felt that it would be "too much" for our casual wedding.

[jester8ball]

A new tradition that my father has done starting with my sisters wedding (wish he would have done it at mine too....) is to auction off the garter. He used to be an auctioneer and it was Soooo fun! He is now doing it next weekend at a cousins wedding and again next February at another relatives wedding! (fun and profitable!).