Edit page | Page history | Printable version

wedding

Nuptial ceremony; nuptial festivities; marriage; nuptials. Simple and brief was the wedding, as that of ruth and of Boaz. (Longfellow)

Certain anniversaries of an unbroken marriage have received fanciful, and more or less appropriate, names. Thus, the fifth anniversary is called the wooden wedding; the tenth, the tin wedding; the fifteenth, the crystal wedding; the twentieth, the china wedding; the twenty-fifth, the silver wedding; the fiftieth, the golden wedding; the sixtieth, the diamond wedding. These anniversaries are often celebrated by appropriate presents of wood, tin, china, silver, gold, etc, given by friends.

Wedding is often used adjectively; as, wedding cake, wedding cards, wedding clothes, wedding day, wedding feast, wedding guest, wedding ring, etc. Let her beauty be her wedding dower. (Shak) Wedding favor, a marriage favor. See Marriage.

Origin: AS. Wedding.