Bizarre Wedding Traditions

If weddings are made in heaven, rules are definitely made on earth because only humans can write the craziest of them all!

From throwing foul things onto the bride to shaving her head, from banning couples from using restroom to killing chicks simply to set a wedding date, there are some really crazy rituals happening in other side of the world. Here’s presenting 10 of those unusual traditions and customs that’ll not only pleasantly surprise you but also make some of your own wedding idiosyncrasies look normal, or maybe, forgiving.

1 NO POTTY BREAK

More than bizarre, this has to be the most difficult wedding ritual ever. The groom and the bride belonging to the Tidong community in Malaysia are prohibited from urinating, defecating and taking bath for 72 hours before the wedding! In this time frame, the couple is given very little food and water, and the belief is if they can survive this hardship, they can bear anything in future.

2 BLACKENING THE BRIDE

If men in skirts weren’t shocking enough, here’s another deed from the kingdom of Scotland that’ll quite surprise us. In the faraway land, there’s something called ‘Blackening the Bride’, where the would-be bride is attacked with eggs, sauces, flour, foul milk, cow dung, mud, tomatoes, feathers or could be, well, ANYTHING. She is then paraded around the town for all to see! They say, it’s only to let her know that marriage is a tough road!

3KIDNAPPING THE BRIDE & LOG SAWING

In some parts of Germany, friends kidnap the bride and hide her, leaving the responsibility of finding her onto the groom. It sure sounds fun playing hide and seek but this ritual has been known to end badly too. Some Germans also do ‘Log Sawing’, a tradition to determine how the couple will handle difficult situations in future. It’s also a test of physical strength because sawing a big log in half is no child’s play!

4 HIDE HORNS OF JEALOUSY

A Japanese bride doesn’t wear veil, instead she adorns tsuno kakushi, a big hood that’s attached to her extravagant kimono. Its purpose is to hide her horns of jealously, ego and selflessness that she has towards her mother-in-law because now she is going to be the head of the family. She is also painted in white, from head to toe, since the color symbolizes purity and is thought to bring peace and prosperity for the newly married couple.

5 BRIDE SHAVED & SPITTED

While in other countries, the bride’s hair gets decorated with all fancy accessories, in the Masai nation of Kenya, her head is shaved and rubbed with lamb fat and oil! Thereafter her father spits on her head and breasts, the act is believed to bring good luck and fortune. Similarly, there’s another belief that when she heads for her new home, with her husband, she cannot look back otherwise she will turn into a stone.

6BREAKING OF DISHES

‘Polterabend’ is an age-old German tradition that takes place a day before the wedding. Friends and family gather in front of bride’s house and break all sort of things, from porcelain, flowerpots, ceramics, metals to any object except mirrors and glasses (it’s bad luck to smash them) to ward off evil spirits. After the shattering episode, the couple has to dutifully clean the floor. It is to make sure they work as a team in turbulent times in the future.

7 BRIDE MUST BEAR 2 CHILDREN

In the Neur unit of southern Sudan, marriage is considered ‘complete’ only after the wife gives birth to two children, preferably sons. So until the birth of her first child, she will stay in her parent’s house. She will move to her husband’s house only after the birth of her second child and if she fails in this mission, the husband has the right to ask for a divorce.

8KILL A CHICK FOR WEDDING DATE

In the Daur community in Mongolia, the future bride and groom announce their wedding date by killing a baby chick together. The mutilation doesn’t end here. They then cut open the chick to see whether liver is in good shape. If it is, they set their wedding date, and if it isn’t, they kill another fowl. They repeat the process until they get hold of a healthy liver!

9 WEDDING FEE IS RAT’S TAILS

You don’t need cash in this part of the world to pay the registrar of marriage bureau. Rather, you need rats tails, 25 rats tails to do the job here in Java. What’s worse is, if you need a divorce, you have to dig further because they demand you pay 40 of them. Now, isn’t that a nasty little rat’s tale!

10FAT BRIDES WANTED

‘Fat’ is beautiful, in the white Moor Arab community of Mauritius. So, young girls from the age of 5 are force fed with milk, butter, couscous, dry fruits and foods that are rich in calories, they are even sent to ‘fattening farms’ where they make sure these young girls bloat like balloons. ‘Fat’ is a sign of well-being and wealth so rounder the girls the stake of getting them married and to richer men is faster.