QR Codes for Weddings

Why should you use QR Codes for weddings?

As a wedding planner, you need to make sure that everyone involved has access to the information they need to make the wedding a success from beginning to end. And when you consider that the reason behind the rising popularity of QR Codes boils down to one core aspect: the ability to connect print to digital, it’s clear to see why they work so well for weddings.

Imagine it the other way around: You spend ample time and energy creating beautiful designs for invitations, and then it comes to the time where you need to add an RSVP link. Doesn’t it make more sense to use a QR Code that matches with your design instead of using a long, ugly link that’s difficult to search for anyways? Exactly, no further explanation needed.

A brief history of weddings

Although the concept of the white wedding dress has become widely recognized, there are many more unique wedding traditions across history and various cultures. Let’s take a look back at how marriage got started and what it has evolved into today.

When did the concept of marriage begin?

The first mention of marriage is found in ancient Hebrew texts from the Old Testament dating back a few thousand years ago but likely began long beforehand. The original concept developed out of necessity: marriage helped royal families protect their bloodlines, granted family property rights, acted as a method for families to reach a new leg up in society, and even became a method of avoiding incest.

It was purely for economic reasons and had little to do with love. Both men and women typically didn’t have much say in who they married either, as it was mostly up to their families and patriarchs. There were also differences in equality among men and women. There was often no form of courtshop and women often didn’t have equal rights within their marriage.

Historically (and still to some extent now), marriage also involved the concept of dowry or bride price. With a dowry, the bride’s family gives money to the groom’s family and with a bride price, the groom’s family gives money to the bride’s family. Whether that was required, in which form, and to which extent depends heavily on the family and cultural background.

Marriage and religion

Marriage also has strong ties with religion, which is still present today considering how many marriages take place in churches at the hands of a priest or pastor. Religious texts also gave married couples additional rights, especially when it came to becoming intimate, though there were also rules attached to marriage as well, monogamy in particular. According to some religions, marriage is a permanent contract and is not possible to divorce, even after finalizing the surrounding legal proceedings on behalf of the government. Nowadays, there have become more clashes between family religious traditions and modern law.

When did it become popular to wear a white wedding dress?

Although marriage is a tradition that goes back thousands of years, the trends and styles attached to it are constantly in flux. The white wedding dress is one prime example, because it wasn’t made popular until 1840 with the reign of Queen Victoria in England. Citizens often followed the fashion choices of the royal family and Queen Victoria decided to go against the fashion standards of the day when she decided to wear a white wedding dress with lace on the neck and sleeves. Following suit, the same dresses began to pop up among citizens that could afford the expensive materials.

White wedding dresses became globally recognized in the early 1900s among middle-class families in Europe and the US. It was then that they began to symbolize purity and innocence in addition to wealth. As the Industrial Revolution began to make materials less expensive and Hollywood popularized the concept in movies, more and more families began incorporating white wedding gowns.

Different types of marriages

• Common law marriage: an informal form of marriage that considers people who have lived together for a certain period of time as married.
• Cousin marriage: a marriage between cousins.
• Endogamy: a tradition where partners must be from the same local community.
• Exogamy: a traditional where partners must be from different communities
• Monogamy: marrying one individual person.
• Polyandry: a woman with multiple husbands.
• Polygamy: both men or women having multiple spouses.
• Polygyny: a man with multiple wives.
• Same-sex marriage: partners who are married and have the same sex.

Which types of marriages are recognized, permitted, and accepted on a societal level differ among locations, cultures, and governmental regulations.