Wedding couple and baby with bread (1975). Public Domain.
Romanian Wedding Bread Traditions (1975)
This image of a Romanian bride and groom features a baby wearing a bread ring as a necklace. This was likely not just something to pacify the child. In Romania, bread is an important part of a wedding ceremony. In the religious ceremony, the bride and groom eat three bites of bread and drink wine. This represents the hope of a prosperous, good life that they will share. In addition to the bread used in the ceremony, there is a braided wedding bread. The bread, called colacul miresei, is broken over the bride’s head by her godmother. The bride shared the bread and a beverage with the wedding guests. The bread brings good luck to the guests who eat it.
Wedding of Crown Prince Naruhito and Crown Princess Masako (1993). Public Domain.
Prince Naruhito and Masako Owada, Japan’s Royal Wedding (1993)
Crown Prince Naruhito proposed to diplomat Masako Owada. Three times. Twice she refused. The third time she accepted, marrying him in June of 1993. Masako was a modern Princess. She was educated at Harvard and Oxford. She had a diplomatic career with the Foreign Ministry. This was controversial; traditionalists felt she was “too outspoken and Americanized.” Modernists wanted her to keep her career instead of leaving to be married. Despite the couple’s modern lives, their wedding was traditional. They wore 8th century Heian-era attire. Crown Princess Masako’s twelve-layered silk kimono weighed 13.5 kilograms (30 pounds). Prince Naruhito wore the orange robe representing Japan’s rising sun, which only the Crown Prince can wear. The couple’s daughter, Aiko, was born in 2001. Masako withdrew from public life in 2004 for personal reasons. She has slowly been returning to public life after she and Naruhito became Emperor and Empress of Japan in 2019.
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