The Dutch Wedding

The Netherlands have a very unique way of showing off their own style of weddings traditions. According to www.worldweddingtraditions.net, instead of showing the girl a ring as a promise to marry, a boy would carve a set of wooden clogs and leave them on the doorstep of the girl's home. If the answer is yes... then the girl would come out wearing the clogs thus begninng the engagement!

It is a very personal touch but as the ages went on, traditions like this moved onto similar ones from around the world. This time, a ring is presented as a token of promised commitment and it is worn on the left hand until marriage and then moved over to the right hand.

The actual ceremony is very similar to how many other cultures do their ceremonies. The day starts off with a civil ceremony, which must be done first in order for the marriage to be legal, followed by a traditional ceremony in a church if the couple wishes for it. Now, here is the best part, couples do not require to have the church and can just build their day on the civil ceremony. So much has changed that all couples need is someone who is a government offical who can perform marriages and can occur anywhere. This frees up location to so many places and can even help couples stay within a specific budget if need be.

Here is the best part... the actual Reception... starts before the ceremony!! The happy couple do their reveal with friends and family and then the happy couple ventures off to do their actual wedding ceremony with guests following along. After the ceremonies are done, the couple and guests return to continue the celebration with dinner, dancing and great cheer.

The benefits of having this type of a wedding is that couples are given a chance to incorporate mutltiple guest lists. For example, perhaps your guest list is 300 and you can only afford to feed 150 at dinner but would like everyone to attend the wedding. The option would be to invite all 300 to the pre-ceremony cocktail party, which can easily cost effective and then at the of the ceremonies you thank those guests and only those invited to the evening portion will head off to the reception hall. This way you can please everyone, but still have control over your budget

The evening portion of the day is where you can see some of the old traditions come out. Such as the

bridal sugar which are five sweets wrapped in tulle that represent love, happiness, loyalty, prosperity and virility. Another tradition is a special spiced wine called " bridal tears" given to the guests to represent the sadness of the bride leaving her family and the joy of her joining her new family.