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| Photo courtesy of Monica - milky.way at Flick'r. |
Modern Italian wedding traditions owe a lot to the ancient Roman marriage ceremony.
If you want Italian culture and customs to be part of your wedding, here's where to start.
Civil weddings in modern-day Italy are fairly proscribed - there's not a lot of scope for the bride and groom to influence the ceremony. And the reason for that, as with many Italian wedding traditions, is based in ancient Roman culture.
The ancient Roman marriage ceremony : preparations.
The ancient Romans were deeply rooted in tradition and customs, and the wedding ceremony followed a very strict format. To Roman families following that structure would have been as important as the legalities of wedding services in Italy are today.
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On the morning of the wedding, while the bride's preparations were taking place in her parent's home, her father, two close friends and the priest who would celebrate the marriage would watch for omens. Before sunrise an animal would be sacrificed and its entrails 'read', and at sunrise the skies would be watched for storms.
Only if the omens were good would the wedding go ahead, always in the early morning.
The ancient Roman marriage ceremony :
where did it happen?
The first part of the ceremony was always at the home of the bride's parents. It would be decorated with flowers picked from their own garden and with tapestries made specially for the occasion.
Roman houses had a large 'atrium' or entrance hall, and it was there the ceremony took place.
The ancient Roman marriage ceremony :
who was there?
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Other guests would be, as they are today, friends and family - and to be asked to a wedding was considered a major honour, so invitations were always accepted and wedding parties tended to be quite large affairs.
Strangely, one person who didn't necessarily need to turn up was the bridegroom. Ancient Italian wedding traditions meant that if he didn't feel like attending, a letter confirming his intention to marry was enough.
The ancient Roman marriage ceremony :
what happened?
Once the bride and groom had joined guests in the 'atrium', the celebrant would start the wedding by ordering evil spirits away, the spirits of the house would be asked for their blessing, the spirit of fire asked to bless the couple, and Janus, the spirit of new beginnings, invoked to bless the couple's transition from single people to a married couple.
The ancient Roman marriage ceremony :
the joining of hands.
The main part of the ceremony would come next. While modern Italian wedding traditions have the father of the bride 'giving' the hand of his daughter to the groom, bridesmaid duties in ancient Roman culture gave this privilege to the matron of honour or 'pronuba' and was the focus of the whole ceremony. Her joining of the couple's right hands signified the point at which the couple were considered to be legally married.
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The marriage, like the engagement before it, would then be formally and legally sealed with a kiss - this is the origin of the modern ceremony in Italian wedding traditions, which always invites the groom to kiss his new wife.
The ancient Roman marriage ceremony : contract and cake.
To end the ceremony the couple would together offer a sacrifice - usually a pig - and ten witnesses would sign the wedding contract.
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And here is the origin of the modern Italian culture and customs of the bride and groom feeding each other wedding cake and champagne.
The ancient Roman marriage ceremony :
what about the rings?
Ancient Roman jewelry traditions meant that men never wore wedding rings, and no rings were exchanged at the wedding ceremony.
Engagement ring tradition in ancient Rome had the groom giving his wife-to-be a ring of iron at the time of their betrothal party which became her wedding ring. No other rings were given or received.
The ancient Roman marriage ceremony :
was that it?
As with modern Italian wedding traditions, the formalities of the ceremony would be followed by as full or as limited an event as the families wanted. However, this would happen, as it does today, in the form of the wedding reception.
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How to introduce ancient Roman marriage customs into your own wedding ceremony.
So - what should you be thinking about if you want to use some of the customs of ancient Italian wedding traditions in your own celebrations?
Here are our suggestions :
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Ancient Roman weddings : the rest of the story.
Ancient Roman marriage to our home page about Italian culture.
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