Today we start a new continuing feature here at weddingsetups.com: a look at wedding traditions from around the world. You can use these articles to honor your family’s heritage during your wedding ceremony, wherever it takes place. Or, you can celebrate the bride or groom’s culture during a pre-wedding party (an article with ideas for these parties will follow).

German Wedding Traditions

Festive Felony

In the smaller villages, the bride may be ‘kidnapped’. The groom looks for her in the local pubs, often picking up the tab for all of the customers or inviting them along in the search.

Housewrecker

There is a house party before the wedding that ends with all of the dishes getting smashed for good luck. The “lucky” bride and groom have to clean up the mess.

German Wedding Food

The bride and groom snack on bread when they first arrive at their home after the wedding, to symbolize that they will never go hungry.

Wedding Cake

The traditional wedding cake is Baumkuchen, which is often made in stacked rings but can also come in the shape of a rectangular cake or small squares. The one below is from konditorei-werner.de, warning: if you visit this site it will make you want to fly to Germany for some dessert!

German Wedding Attire

Tasty Accessories

Traditionally, the bride carries bread and salt to symbolize a good harvest and the groom carries grain, which is a symbol for good luck and health. This is also an aspect of traditional Polish Weddings, to read all about them please visit polishwedding.blogspot.com – a very useful and informative source. Photo: Polishwedding.blogspot.com.

Yes, but how far can you throw it?

In Germany the bride passes her veil on to the next woman to be married, rather than throwing the bouquet.

German Wedding Decorations

Sharing a Cup

Another tradition is for the bride and groom to drink from a special cup that lets them both drink at the same time. This is based on the “Legend of the Maiden Bridal Cup” and you can buy one of the beautiful cups at mayhemltd.com.This cup would also make a thoughful gift to the bride from the groom. The cup, and it’s beautiful story could also be used to propose!

Flower Horse Power

In Germany, real flowers are used to decorate the cars, rather than the ribbons, bows, and plastic flowers often used in North America.

Important German Words

Wedding: Hochzeit

Bride: Braut

Groom: Brautigam

All flowers have meanings ascribed to them, and tulips mean both ‘love’ and ‘passion’, so they are perfect wedding flowers. While tulips are available year round -to many people, tulips also mean that it’s springtime because that’s when they see tulips pop up in their own gardens.

Tulips come in a wide variety of colors, so your options for wedding colors are huge. Select a color that will match your wedding color, or one that will complement it.

White Can Be Just Right

Or, transform tulips to elegant romance by sticking with pure white. You can save money by ordering your wedding flowers directly from a wholesaler, like the flowerexchange.com. This is a great idea if you have a family member or friend who is skilled at floral arrangements. Not that lucky? You can still order in lots of flowers and stick to very simple arrangements. A large quantity of white tulips will fill the room and compensate for less fancy decor. In fact, it will look like you did it on purpose!

This rectangle vase from Ikea is only $1.99. Buy 100 of them and place them in groups on each table, and every where else you can think of (line the hallways, put them on the bathroom counters, place them between the food, by the guest book, etc).

Bright Wedding Idea: Colors Colors Colors!

The good news here is that if you are going with colorful tulips as a theme for your wedding, you can find Easter decorations for sale and save some money! This will work particularly well if you can shop a year in advance and pick up all of the sale items after Easter-time.

Tulip Cocktail Napkins

These napkins are from Crate & Barrel and are so elegant yet fun, that they could inspire the look of your whole wedding (colors, style). It will be our little secret.

High Contrast

This wild and crazy arrangement from The Flower Pot would be perfect for a down to earth yet fun bride. The arrangement is colorful and the colors will contrast wonderfully against a white wedding dress. I love how the tulip leaves become part of the arrangement.

Flower Motifs in Wedding Decorations

Fresh flower arrangements, bouquets, and boutonnieres – flowers play a big role in your wedding (and, possibly, your budget!). However, a Spring or Summer wedding can also include flowers in other decorating ideas as well.

Tips: Pick one type of flower and stick with it. If you do this, the flower can become a symbol for your big day and a subtle theme for all aspects of your wedding. Do not mix and match different flowers unless they are from the same group (i.e. wildflowers), and even then be very careful.

White Rose Fabric

Consider using the flower as a subtle design on some decorations – a raised pattern of white roses on a white background would be the kind of elelgant detail that people notice. For example, use a print like this one from cloaksofireland.com for the table linens (if the rose has a slight sheen to it and the background fabric is matte, it will be more noticeable.)

White Rose Petals

Use flower petals to decorate the church or reception hall. You can use fresh petals or purchase fabric petals, like these from wholesaleflowerandsupplies.com.

White Rose Stamps

You can include rose motifs right down to the smallest details, like using these stamps from zazzle.com on your invitations.

The Bride and Bloom

Tip: Keep in mind that even a white rose can have very different looks. Try to stick with the same shade of white and the same style so that your wedding doesn’t start to look unorganized.

Rose Wedding Favor

This delicate looking rose candle holder from hotref.com is made from resin and clear rhinestones (it includes the candle).

White Chocolate Rose Wedding Cake

A delicious and delightful white chocolate cake adorned with roses, from justscrumptious.co.uk.

DIY Delicious

You can make your own white roses from modeling chocolate, instructions at pastrychef.com. Leave them at each place setting as an edible decoration, or nestle each delicate rose in a favor box and send the guests home with one. Apparently, you can make them months ahead of time as long as you store them in a cool, dry location.

Today we feature my favorite kind of wedding favors.

I feel very strongly that wedding favors need to be useful – they should be more than a useless knickknack. I love wedding favors that are edible or wedding favors that can be planted in your garden.

But most of all, I love wedding favors that serve double duty – they are perfect for the budget conscious bride. What do I mean by double duty? I mean favors that also serve as a place card or, when displayed on the table, become the centerpiece. Here are some of my favorites:

Picture Frame Favor – Place Card

This pink rhinestone frame from hotref.com is used as a place card for guest seating and also functions as a cute wedding favor that guests can take home.

Bamboo Wedding Favor – Centerpiece

Group these individual pots from natureperfect.com together on each table to make a unique centerpiece. Guests get to pick one and take it home afterwards!

Shot Glass Wedding Favor and Special Toast

Serve filled shot glasses, like these ones from favorfavor.com to the guests and ask them to participate in a special toast. Perfect fun for a destination wedding where you can use the local specialty (tequila, grappa, jagermeister…). Then they get to take the glass home as a wedding favor.

Custom Dice Wedding Favor and Reception Ice Breaker

A cute favor for the Las Vegas wedding or geeky couple who love to play yahtzee. Create custom yahtzee score paper and include a cup at each table so that your guests can have some fun getting to know each other while the wedding party is off getting photos taken. Provide prizes to the winner at each table or reward them by forcing them to sing a song or share a story about the happy couple!

Don’t let winter confine your wedding ideas to the indoors – you still have plenty of opportunity to make big plans for the great outdoors. A blanket of snow or frost can provide the perfect backdrop for some stunning decorations outside the place where you get married or celebrate afterwards (or both). The white sheen of snow or ice bounces back light to draw attention to focal points you create.

In the last post (Winter Wedding Wonderland) I gave some examples of how you can use Winter to your advantage: twinkling lights, a dramatic fur cape, bright flowers for contrast – go back to the article to see all of the great ideas there.

Big Wedding Plans for the Great Outdoors

Bright Ideas for Winter White

Imagine these vibrant petals scattered on the snow along both sides of a path to your chapel – or in your outdoor wedding photos. If the canvas is white, you can literally paint with the petals.

Creative use of dance lights to paint a white landscape would also be effective for a nighttime event (or late afternoon – it can get dark quite early, another advantage to winter weddings!).

www.partylights.co.uk

Paper lanterns can also be beautiful (and budget-conscious) as long as they are needed for only a brief time (rain or even mist will damage them very quickly).

www.justartifacts.com

White on White

For an elegant look, you can avoid contrast and accentuate the whiteness by decorating with transparent or white objects – excellent for a clear, bright winter day. If your event is at night, you can use accent lighting to draw the eye.

tripadvisor.com

You can add your own icicles to nature to emphasize the season. For example, you could decorate with icicles made out of glass or handcrafted snowflakes.

www.glassicicles.com/

These snowflakes are larger than life at 4 feet tall.

www.shindigz.com

While you are bringing big ideas to your winter wedding – you can also incorporate it into the details at the same time. This really pulls the whole event together. Here is an example:

A beautiful snowflake headband

www.flutterbyweddings.co.uk