Weddings Around the World: Process

Process

1. In your groups, you must first pick a country to research and get it approved by the teacher (as no two groups may choose the same country). The list of countries you may choose from is as follows: The United States, China, Japan, India, Turkey, Malaysia, Yemen, Italy, Brazil, and Sudan.

2. You need to assign each person in the group to one of the following roles:

Engagement Guru-the expert on pre-wedding cultural traditions.
Financial Advisor-the expert on finances, both pre and post-wedding.
Wedding Official-the expert on traditions of the actual wedding ceremony.
Party Planner-the expert on the celebration and post-wedding customs.

3. Each person will become the expert his/her new title implies by researching to find answers to the following guiding questions:

a. Engagement Guru
-Are marriages arranged or do indivicuals choose their mates through dating?

-How long do couples usually date before getting engaged?

-How is engagement celebrated?

-What kind of pre-wedding parties are thrown for the bride and groom?

-How many guests are invited and what is the invitation process?

b. Financial Adviser

-What are the costs involved in a wedding?

-How much does a traditional wedding cost?

-Who pays for the wedding? What does the bride’s family provide? The groom’s family?

-What kind of gifts does a couple generally receive?

c. Wedding Official
-Who conducts the wedding ceremony?

-What do the bride and groom wear?

-What are the ceremony traditions?

-What role does religion play?

-Where does the ceremony take place?

-How long does the ceremony last?

d. Party Planner
-What kind of party follows the ceremony, if any?

+what food is traditionally eaten?

+what kind of music is customary?

+where does it take place?

-Do the bride and groom go on a honeymoon? Where? For how long?

-What kind of post honeymoon traditions do they have? (ex. family visitation i n Korea )

-How do the roles of women change after they get married? (for example, do they continue to work, or do they solely dedicate themselves to homemaking?)

4. After everyone has done the initial research, the group will come together to discuss their findings. Each expert has the responsibility of teaching everyone in the group about their specialty area, so that you can work together to make decisions.

5. The group will use their combined new knowledge and work together to create a traditional wedding plan. The plan must include a description of pre-wedding activities, the ceremony (described in detail), post-wedding activities, as well as a price estimate.

6. You will create either a Power Point presentation or a website to present your plan. In putting together the final product each person will be responsible for the following tasks:

Engagement Guru-in charge of taking notes during discussion and recording all decisions.
Financial Adviser-responsible for keeping track of the cost as decisions are made for the wedding plan, and calculating a final total cost estimate.
Wedding Official-will put everything together and create the final product.
Party Planner-in charge of collecting images and audio clips for the presentation.

7. Each group will present their wedding plan to the class (and to the happy couple for whom the plans were designed).

8. After all of the plans have been presented, the groups will reconvene to compare and contrast wedding customs here and new wedding customs we have just learned about.

9. Each student will write a paper discussing the similarities and differences in the wedding customs presented. Click on the "paper" link for more details.

Guidance

Here you will find links to websites to help you in your research.

1. Marriage customs for a variety of countries: (find info. on your country)

http://www.weddingguru.com/wedding_traditions.as

http://www.ivillage.co.uk/relationships/marriage/dispute/articles/0,,157_625160,00.html

http://www.zawaj.com/weddingways_main.html
http://www.ourmarriage.com/html/around_the_world.html

http://www.worldweddingtraditions.com/

http://www.routledge-ny.com/religionandsociety/Rites/marriage.pdf

http://sanantonio.weddingvillage.com/cultures.html

http://www.i-do.com.au/network/ListTopics.asp?department=20&host=8

2. Country-specific customs:
The United States
http://www.weddings.co.uk/info/tradsupe.htm
http://www.weddingyellowpages.net/articles/wedding_traditions_customs.php

http://articles.syl.com/americanweddingtraditions.html