A friend or family member is getting married, and you’ve picked up the present, but you’re now faced with this tough question: What to write on a wedding card?
Most adults have probably faced this situation at least once in their lives. Well, this page provides you with lots of ways to address that question.
We’ve started with wedding messages and funny wedding greetings, followed by international wedding proverbs, quotes about weddings and marriage, wishes for a second marriage, and finally, wedding customs.
Wedding Messages
Always make sure you’re on the same page, and never turn the pages too fast.
When you were born, we were so happy, and on your wedding day, we’re even happier.
Congratulations, you found the perfect mate! And they said it couldn’t be done.
True love is easy to spot; I could spot you two from across the room!
Celebrate each day together just like you are celebrating today. Party on!
As the saying goes, “This is the beginning of the first day of the rest of your days together.”
Check out another wedding card message page.
Funny Wedding Wishes
We’re happy to attend the wedding, but we won’t be attending the honeymoon.
Joyful wedding wishes to the happy couple; keep smiling!
This is the beginning of your life together; no more closed bathroom doors.
Seems like only yesterday you were getting married, oh wait, it was yesterday!
We couldn’t ask for a better daughter or a more beautiful bride; now you’re his responsibility.
I’m not sure why they call it “getting hitched?” It sounds more like a horse and carriage thing than a love and marriage thing.
We never thought this wedding day would come, but surprise, it did! Congratulations!
Congratulations, you found your missing link!
You might like another page on the Best Wedding Wishes.
Wedding Proverbs from Different Countries
Consider including a proverb like the ones listed below in your wedding card. But the proverb shouldn’t stand alone. Complement it with a personal message and wishes for a happy marriage.
Fear less, hope more; eat less, chew more; whine less, say more; love more, and all good things will be yours.
Swedish Proverb
True happiness consists of making others happy.
Hindu Proverb
Marrying is easy; it’s housework that’s hard.
English Proverb
Unshared joy is an unlighted candle.
Spanish Proverb
If you want to be criticized, marry.
Irish Proverb
Best Bachelorette Party Captions
The most dangerous food is a wedding cake.
American Proverb
A joy that is shared is a joy made double.
English Proverb
The wedding lasts for two or three days, but the trouble stays.
Czech Proverb
One of life’s greatest mysteries is how the boy who wasn’t good enough to marry your daughter can be the father of the smartest grandchild in the world. Jewish Proverb
To marry once is a duty, twice a folly, and three times madness.
Dutch Proverb
See How To Give a Best Man Speech.
Marriage Proverbs
If you want to marry wisely, marry your equal.
Spanish Proverb
The wife cries before the wedding, and the husband after.
Luxembourg Proverb
Never marry for money; you can borrow cheaper.
Scottish Proverb
Happiness is to hold flowers in both hands.
Chinese Proverb
He who does not marry will be lonely.
Irish Proverb
Nothing is impossible for a willing heart.
French Proverb
Love has to be shown by deed, not words.
Swahili Proverb
It’s not beauty that determines who we love but love that determines who we find beautiful.
German Proverb
Woe to him who does not have the counsel of a good wife.
Irish Proverb
Where love reigns, the impossible may be attained.
Indian Proverb
See Good Congratulations on your Wedding Messages, Wishes, and Captions
Quotes About Marriage For Wedding Cards
There is no cozy combination as man and wife.
Menander
Weddings are not over until they are sealed with a kiss.
Susan Marg
When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with someone. You want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.
Nora Ephron
There is no remedy for love but to love more.
Henry David Thoreau
Love, at first sight, is easy to understand; it’s when two people have been looking at each other for a lifetime that it becomes a miracle.
Amy Bloom
Weddings are important because they celebrate life and possibility.
Anne Hathaway
To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides.
David Viscott
The more you invest in a marriage, the more valuable it becomes.
Amy Grant
Love does not consist of gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery
There is no more lovely, friendly, and charming relationship, communion, or company than a good marriage.
Mart Luther
Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.
Aristotle
More Marriage Quotes.
Inspirational Wedding Quotes
Our wedding was many years ago; the celebration continues to this day.
Gene Perret
Many people spend more time planning the wedding than they do in planning the marriage.
Zig Ziglar
Every Bride and Groom would do well to remember that in the wedding, the ‘we’ comes before the ‘I’.
Evan Esar
Weddings to me are wondrous because they are so filled with tomorrows.
Mary Forsell
Gravity can not be held responsible for people falling in love.
Albert Einstein
Remember, a wedding is a celebration of your union, and there’s no price tag on what your love and your promises mean to your future. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking a bigger wedding means you love each other more.
Karen Schwartz
To marry unequally is to suffer equally.
Henri Frederic Amiel
A person’s character is but half-formed until after wedlock.
Charles Simmons
Don’t marry the person you think you can live with; marry only the individual you can’t live without.
Charles C. Dobson
Even more Wedding Quotes.
Wedding Messages From the Movies
When I look at you, I can feel it; when I look at you, I’m home.
Finding Nemo
Perhaps we were friends first and lovers second. But then, perhaps this is what lovers are.
Call Me By Your Name
We are joined by the bonds of love, and you cannot track that, not with a thousand bloodhounds, and you cannot break it, not with a thousand swords.
The Princess Bride
I think I’d miss you even if we never met.
The Wedding Date
This kind of certainty comes but once in a lifetime.
Bridges of Madison County
True love lasts a lifetime.
Love Actually
Take love, multiply it by infinity and take it to the depths of forever, and you still have only a glimpse of how I feel for you.
Meet Joe Black
True love is your soul’s recognition of its counterpoint in another.
Wedding Crashers
Some people are worth melting for.
Frozen
I wish I had done everything on earth with you.
The Hobbit
Deep in my soul, I know I’m your destiny.
Mulan
Hold my hand, and we’re halfway there, hold my hand, and I’ll take you there.
West Side Story
You’ll know when you meet the right girl because it’s not how you feel about her; it’s how she makes you feel about yourself.
The Wedding Singer
You are what I never knew I always wanted.
Fools Rush In
Classic Wedding Card Messages from the Movies
I know by experience that the poets are right; love is eternal.
A Room with a View
I love how she makes me feel like anything is possible or like life is worth it.
500 Days of Summer
It doesn’t matter if the guy is perfect. Or the girl is perfect, as long as they are perfect for each other.
Good Will Hunting
The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.
Moulin Rouge
I’m in love with you, and I’m not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things.
The Fault in Our Stars
The best love is the kind that awakens the soul and makes us reach for more, that plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds.
The Notebook
The course of true love gathers no moss.
The Philadelphia Story
I used to think a wedding was a simple affair.
Father of the Bride
She is the only evidence of God I have, with the exception of the mysterious force that removes one sock from the dryer every time I do any laundry.
St. Elmo’s Fire
Greetings for Second Marriages
Love is lovelier the second time around. No, it really is!
Happiness is finally being married to my best friend.
Okay, so maybe the second time you’re not madly in love, but muchly.
No, it’s not a dream; you really are walking down the aisle again. Congratulations!
I just realized that I have the chance to spend the rest of my life with you. Thank you for marrying me.
Sis, I’m so happy that you found love again; he’s a great guy. Congrats!
To my brother, I couldn’t be prouder of your new choice of a bride.
Look at it this way; two’s a charm!
If, at first, you don’t succeed, try, try again. Let’s shoot for just one try.
I am getting a second chance to sing someone a love song. Thank you.
Let’s dance together for the rest of our lives. I love you!
Thank you for being the person who will put up with me. Now, let’s get married!
Your love is a gift, and I am certainly not going to re-gift it.
I consider myself incredibly lucky to have found love again with you.
Congratulations to both of you; it’s nice when two great people get a second chance.
Wedding Traditions Through the Years
One of the oldest wedding traditions in the world is the groom asking the future father-in-law for his daughter’s hand in marriage. In the past, a gift was often included as part of the query. Ancient Romans had the tradition of the groom-to-be giving a coin to the father.
Throughout the years, horses, sheep, oxen, food, land, buildings, treasures, and other goodies were also considered acceptable gifts for future in-laws. This was often viewed as the ”sale” of the daughter, a highly sexist practice. Today, the tradition of asking for permission isn’t nearly as important or consistently followed as in years past.
The strange custom of tying cans to the bumper of the newlywed’s car actually evolved. Originally, wedding guests were encouraged to throw a shoe (or shoes) at the bride and groom’s car as it was leaving. Invariably, some of the shoes would land on the car and be driven off, accompanying the happy couple on their honeymoon. The guests were left to walk back home with one or no shoes.
Someone had the bright idea of substituting tin cans instead of shoes. The cans were cheap replacements, and no one cared if they drove away. Unfortunately, the bride and groom noticed the nicks caused by the flying cans and so a solution was suggested. The solution was to tie the tin cans to the car’s rear bumper so they wouldn’t be used as projectiles. To explain the presence of the cans, a just married sign was affixed to the trunk lid. This tradition is currently enjoying a slight resurgence.
Cutting the Wedding Cake
A tradition that has almost completely fallen out of favor is the happy couple cutting the wedding cake. Usually done jointly and followed by a photo op of the bride feeding the groom a piece of cake. Now, if they have a cake at all, the bride and groom let the baker, caterer, or wedding planner cut the cake.
Pieces can also be already cut and on plates ready to be served, or the couple opts for the highly popular cupcakes. I wonder what will happen with all of the surplus plastic brides and grooms?
Because of the changing composition of marrying couples and the crowd-pleasing vision of a strong woman walking herself down the aisle, the tradition of the father walking the bride down the aisle has faded.
However, some brides have both parents walk them down the aisle, walk with the groom, or even resurrect the special bond between daughter and father and let the old man accompany her on this special bridal journey.
The Dowry
Centuries ago (and in a few countries today), the bride’s parents would give the future groom a bounty of goods and/or sometimes hard cash. Called a dowry. It was literally a payment to the new son-in-law for taking their daughter off the payroll.
This overt pay-to-wed practice slowly evolved into the parents of the bride paying for the wedding. As weddings have gotten exponentially more expensive and traditions have changed, thankfully for the checkbooks of the parents of the bride, the new bride and groom, and parents of the groom now contribute to the costs. Whew!
Traditions may change and come and go, but a wedding ceremony will always be a beautiful celebration of a man and a woman pledging their love for each other and beginning their lives together. It also creates a lasting memory that the married couple can treasure for many years to come.
Wedding Traditions In Other Countries
We are all familiar with the way weddings are celebrated in the United States. It may be the saying “something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue,” or the custom of tossing the bride’s bouquet, the cutting of the cake by the happy couple, or even the bride and groom’s first dance. We know how weddings are done in America.
But the practices and wedding traditions in other parts of the world are very different and surprising. Here are some wonderfully weird wedding customs from other countries around the world.
One of the strangest customs is the Mongolian tradition of having the engaged couple kill and butcher a chicken. A bit gruesome, but added to that, to test the bridegroom’s strength, a cooked sheep’s neck is given to him, and he must break the sheep’s neck with his bare hands. What he doesn’t know is that a steel rod has been inserted in the neck before giving it to him to break. Hilarity ensues as the bridesmaids roast the unsuspected bridegroom’s lack of strength mercilessly. I won’t be getting married in Mongolia any time soon.
An interesting wedding tradition in France seems totally harmless to begin with. Brides and grooms are given chocolates and champagne to eat and drink following the wedding at the reception. Harmless enough, but the twist is that these tasty treats must be consumed from a toilet bowl. Apparently, the symbolism is to “toughen up” the happy couple ahead of their wedding night. It sounds like a nightmare to me that might make them sick.
Asking for her Hand in Marriage
As part of the ritual of asking the future father-in-law for his daughter’s hand in marriage, it is the custom in Fiji for the groom-to-be to give a gift in addition to asking the question.
The traditional gift is a whale’s tooth. There are a couple of problems with this; one – most whales do not have teeth, so finding one that does could be difficult, and two – you can’t just go down to the whale’s tooth store down at the mall and pick one up. Sadly, the want-to-be groom might have to get in the water with a pair of pliers, scary.
Polterabend – A German Wedding Tradition
They call it “polterabend” in Germany, and it is custom-designed to bond a new bride and groom together. The newlyweds must sweep up and dispose of broken dishes that the wedding guests have smashed on the ground.
The guests aren’t rude, but their actions are intended to scare away evil spirits and keep the bride and groom safe. It just sounds like a mess to me.
A Close Shave in Greece
The best man has a unique duty on the wedding day in Greece. He is called a “Koumparos,” and the best man must give the groom a close shave on his special day. Following this interesting grooming ritual, the groom’s future mother-in-law gives him a nice plate of honey and almonds. Imagine the pressure on the best man not to nick the groom and get blood all over the rented tux.
As intriguing as these traditions sound, the American customs sound a little easier to take and more fun. In the U.S., I think we like to keep our weddings on the lighter side and just let the bride and groom and their guests enjoy themselves.
By Tim Moodie
Tim Moodie is a Copywriter and Creative Director. He spent many years writing funny greeting cards, coffee mugs, and toilet paper for Recycled Paper Products. In addition, he created the box copy for novelty gifts, including the Jesse Ventura Action Figures.
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