Pop sensation Joe Jonas and Game of Thrones actress Sophie Turner are celebrating the first anniversary of their church wedding in France. The pair have been quiet about their celebrations, but brother Nick Jonas and his wife Priyanka Chopra have sent them sweet congratulations.
On his Instagram story, Nick Jonas posted a photo of Joe and Sophie walking hand-in-hand down the aisle in France from their 2019 wedding. “Happy Anniversary Jophie. Love you guys!” wrote the younger Jonas brother.
The pair, by the time they had their church wedding, had already said their “I dos” in May 2019 at their impromptu Vegas wedding.
Chopra posted the same photo, with some added editing for decoration, and said “Happy 1 year anniversary. Love you both”.
Jonas and Turner met in 2016, but kept their courtship quiet for a long time. According to Insider, they began talking after Jonas sent Turner a message on Instagram.
“We had a lot of mutual friends and they’d been trying to introduce us for a long time,” Turner told Harper’s Bazaar UK during a March 2019 interview. “We were following each other on Instagram and he direct messaged me one fine day, out of the blue.” After a few weeks of back and forth texting, they met up in London, and by then they knew it was meant to be.
In 2019, they surprised everyone by making it official in a Las Vegas ceremony at the Little White Wedding Chapel after the Billboard Music Awards.
Within Kenya, there are a variety of different tribes (more than 40), and each tribe has its own traditions. Of course, this includes practices for weddings.
According to a blog called African Wedding Traditions, some of these practices have been let go of in modern times, and others are re-enacted to pay tribute to tradition. Each one has been passed down through Kenyan history.
Love Matters Africa reports that, in most cases, there will be two to three meetings between the families before the wedding – no matter which tribe they are from. The bride’s parents are visited by the groom and his father and uncles to show his interest in marriage with their daughter, then there are dowry negotiations, and finally, the dowry is paid and the wedding plans are finalized.
Often, the groom is not allowed to speak in any of these meetings, with most of the talking being done by his father and uncles. The bride-to-be is commonly not present until all of these meetings are complete.
Of course, there are variations among tribes with these meetings, however, most include it in some form or other.
Here are some other wedding traditions from various tribes:
Rendille Tribe
For men who are part of the Rendille tribe, a marriage proposal is more than just a simple question. He has to send beads to the woman he is interested in marrying, and if she accepts them they they will become engaged.
The woman’s parents must then show that they approve of the marriage. To do so, her mother places an ornament made of wood on top of the beads.
Just before the pair are set to marry, the woman must have her ears pierced, and must get various symbolic tattoos applied to her body. The man, on the other hand, must provide his wife-to-be’s family with camels.
Kikyuyu Tribe
A traditional Kikyuyu wedding is called the “ngarario”. On this day, the groom visits the bride’s family home with his parents and other members of his family. They are not allowed to enter the house at first.
The “kuhura hoti” takes place, in which women within the groom’s family sing outside the house and carry gifts. Women who are part of the bride’s family also sing inside the house.
Eventually, the front door is opened and they are let inside. Following this, another practice called “gucagura muka wake” is performed. The groom must find his bride in a group of women who are all dressed exactly the same. If he picks the wrong woman, he must pay a fine.
Samburu Tribe
At a wedding ceremony of a couple who form part of the Samburu Tribe, members of the tribe cross wooden sticks while the couple is being married. This is symbolic of the fact that the new marriage will have lasting roots, and will maintain the strength and natural life force of trees.
Masai Tribe
Brides who are part of the Masai tribe shave their heads in preparation for their nuptials. Thereafter, they apply lamb fat and oil to their scalps, according to Voltaire Diamonds.
After the marriage ceremony, the bride leaves with her spouse and it is said that she should not, under any circumstances, look back or she will turn to stone. Voltaire Diamonds also reports that members of the groom’s family insult the couple as they leave, in order to ward off evil spirits and misfortune.
Pokot Tribe
Grooms in the Pokot Tribe must pay a bride price. They must also provide their brides with a leather wedding band, which they place on her wrist at the wedding ceremony.
It would be easy to imagine that wedding dresses have been glamorous and varying shades of white since their inception. However, they have actually changed a lot over the years. From fabric and style to length and colour, not much about wedding dresses has stayed the same.
Not much is known, due to a lack of documentation, about weddings in ancient times. However, Love To Know reports that the ancient dress tradition differed according to culture. Brides in ancient Rome are said to have worn yellow veils to represent a torch and symbolise warmth. In ancient Athens, brides were likely to have worn long robes in shades of red or violet.
Brides of Ancient Roman. Source: Pinterest
From the 5th to the 15th centuries (or in the Medieval times), because weddings were more about politics than love, brides were required to dress in a manner that cast her family in a good light. Brides of high social standing would wear rich colours and expensive materials including fur, velvet, and silk. Often, they had gems sewn into their garments too.
During the Renaissance (from about the 14th to the 17th century), which overlaps with the Medieval times, layering was important. In addition, dresses were long, hanging from the neck to the feet, and may have included a train. Burgundy was a popular colour at the time, and dresses were often corseted or had skirts done in a bell shape.
Elle, however, reports that around the 17th century it was common for a bride to simply wear her best dress, no matter its colour.
Much later, in 1840, the white wedding dress became popular. This is credited to Queen Victoria, who wore an ivory silk gown to marry Prince Albert in that year. Soon after, the white wedding dress became majorly popular, with dressmakers also incorporating embroidered silk, lace, and floral detailing into wedding dresses. High necks, full skirts, and white gloves were popular for brides at the time.
Queen Victoria popularised the white wedding dress trend. Source: Pinterest
In the early 1900s, white remained the most popular colour, but some brides opted for azure, mauve, or pale think. According to Bridal Guide, a wedding dress at this time incorporated an S-shaped corset, to pull in the belly and push out the bosom. Dresses also came with frills on the bodice, and gigot sleeves.
Gigot sleeves and corset detail rose in popularity in the early 1900s. Source: Pinterest
Through the 1900s wedding dresses went through many transformations. In the 20s sleek, drop waist gowns were popular, and dresses became slightly shorter, according to Good Housekeeping. The 30s and 40s brought simpler outfits, as the wars led to financial struggles, many brides wore items they already owned.
Drop-waist wedding gowns were popular in the 20s. Suource: Pinterest
Elizabeth Taylor’s dress in her film Father of the Bride, which had a fitted bodice and a full skirt influenced trends of the 50s. Sweetheart necklines were also popular at the time. About 20 years later, in the 70s, the popular neckline moved to high collars. The 70s saw a lot of experimentation, as it to be expected of the time.
High collars were very trendy and still are. Source: Pinterest
In the 80’s there was no such thing as “less is more”, in fact, at the time brides believed “the bigger the better”. Puffy sleeves, long trains, and over the top headdresses were all the rage.
80s brides were all about over-the-top detail. Source: Pinterest
Vera Wang opened her bridal boutique in 1990, and 10 years later she was considered to be one of the top dress designers. Her speciality at the time was strapless and spaghetti straps.
Nowadays, brides can do whatever they like. Most still opt for white wedding dresses, but styles vary broadly.
The coronavirus and the resulting worldwide lockdowns it has caused has resulted in many a social media challenge gain traction. It seems brides, old and new, are not being left out of this trend, and a new challenge, called the Wedding Dress challenge, on TikTok has gone viral.
Some challenges involve some sort of prank, and others show users doing something silly, but the wedding dress challenge is nothing but pure, wholesome fun.
Former brides, be it a bride from last year or a bride from 20 years ago, are surprising their spouses by putting on their wedding dresses and capturing their reactions in a TikTok. The reactions are sweet and heartwarming, and just what we need to make the continuing lockdown seem not that bad.
Have a look at some of the renditions of the challenge here:
Award-winning actress Nicole Kidman and her Australian singer, songwriter husband Keith Urban celebrated their 14th wedding anniversary on Thursday, June 25. To celebrate their milestone, they each posted sweet tributes to their marriage on Instagram.
Urban posted a playful photo of the two jumping hand-in-hand on a beach. “Happy Anniversary Baby!!!!! 14 years…. and i feel like your boyfriend in ALL the right ways!!!!” he said.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CB3-P70pM91/
Kidman kept it simple with a black and white image of the two in an embrace, captioned, “Us ❤️ #HappyAnniversary“.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CB3woqYJTSl/
The pair first met at the 2005 G’Day USA gala. At the time, Kidman didn’t think that her now-husband liked her. In 2013, she told Ellen DeGeneres that she once told her husband “You didn’t love me at first sight, you didn’t notice me”, to which he replied, “Yes, I did but I just didn’t let on”.
It was a long four months after their first meeting when Urban finally called her. Thereafter, the pair began a low-key relationship, according to People. After spending time together in Nashville and then New York while Urban was on tour, the pair quickly fell in love.
Kidman told the Wall Street Journal that her husband stole her heart when we took her on a ride on his Harley Davidson through Woodstock, New York, after which they had a romantic picnic in the woods.
“I was a goner – I mean, c’mon,” she said. According to Southern Living, Kidman knew he was the one after just one month of dating.
In 2006, they tied the knot in a candlelit ceremony at Cardinal Cerretti Memorial Chapel on St. Patrick’s Estate at Manly in Sydney, Australia. They honeymooned in French Polynesia, where they also spent time getting to know each other more deeply.
“I kind of like getting married and then getting to know each other; I know that it sounds incredibly strange, but to me, it’s a more natural process,” Kidman told Elle.
In an interview with CBS News, Urban said that marrying Kidman felt like the beginning of his life. “Meeting her and getting married wasn’t life-changing, it was life-beginning. It was literally, like, ‘OK, life starts,” he said.
The pair have two daughters together, Sunday and Faith, and Kidman also has two kids, Conner and Isabella, with her ex-husband Tom Cruise.
Today, South Africa prefers to be known as the Rainbow Nation, a country with wide diversity, who is accepting of everyone. Anyone can marry whoever they’d like to. However, this was not always the case.
Under Apartheid, marriage between people of certain races was prohibited. After the National Party (NP) came into power in 1948, they promulgated various racist laws. One of these was the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act, Act No 55 of 1949. It was one of the first pieces of legislation they enacted after gaining power, according to Thought Co.
The act banned marriages between “Europeans and non-Europeans”. In plain English, this meant that white people could not marry anyone who was not considered to be white. In addition, the law made it a criminal offense for a marriage officer to perform a ceremony between a white person and a person of colour.
According to SA History, the new law also rendered interracial marriages that took place outside of South Africa to be null and void. Many were arrested for breaking the provisions set out by the new laws.
The law was justified as the government claimed to want to “protect the purity” of the white race and to ensure that people of colour do not “infiltrate” the “dominant” race. To really ensure that this didn’t happen, the Apartheid government also passed the Immorality Act No. 23 of 1957 (which repealed the 1927 act) to prohibit sexual intercourse or “immoral or indecent acts” between white people and people of colour.
To clarify, the law did not prevent mixed marriages between people of colour (for example if a black citizen wanted to marry a coloured citizen).
Thought Co reported that even without the law that had been put in place, mixed marriages between white people and people of colour were already rare. They averaged under 100 per year, between ’43 and ’46.
Many opposed the Prohibition of Marriage Act. However, in most cases it was not because whites wanted to have mixed marriages, but rather because they felt insulted at the thought that they would intend to. They thought the law was not necessary.
Years later, actual opposition to the laws built up. In 1976, approximately 260 people were convicted for violating the law, according to Thought Co. The next year, 1977, the opposition became so strong that it divided the cabinet.
On June 19 1985, the laws were repealed by the Immorality and Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Amendment Act, according to SA History. This Act allowed interracial marriages and relationships.
According to the BBC, South Africa’s first interracial marriage (supposedly the first legal one, since there were cases of people being convicted for contravening the laws prior to the legalisation), was between a white woman named Suzanne Leclerc and a black man named Protas Madlala.
Today, of course, thousands of interracial marriages exist in the country. Mixed couples creating beautiful families are easily found and widely celebrated.
Being married to one of the world’s most famous chefs definitely comes with its perks. Jamie Oliver proved just that, when he prepared a sweet picnic for his wife Juliette Norton (better known as Jools) on their 20th wedding anniversary on June 24.
First, Oliver shared a touching video on his Instagram page, showing pictures from their wedding album.
He captioned the video, “Today is my 20th wedding anniversary!! I had a great day today with my best mate @joolsoliver celebrating 20 years of marriage!! Where has that time gone it’s crazy! What a ride! Anyway here’s some precious memories from that private day what a joy it was ….. here’s to another 20 jools love you. X x. X x”
https://www.instagram.com/p/CB1N3D-j50V/
Jools did the same, posting a touching tribute to their marriage in the form of a video on her Instagram page.
“20 years married Today !!❤️❤️20 exciting, happy, fun wonderful years married to my best friend ❤️ we were due to renew our wedding vows this summer but that can wait! 20 years married but together 27 years my first true love ❤️ Yes I drive you Bonkers and you probably deserve a medal etc..but being with you feels like home (and you know much I love to be at home)!!” she said.
“I treasure the daily texts you send, you are romantic and constantly positive funny and a dedicated brilliant dad ❤️ we have created 5 wonderful children and lost our 5 little stars in the sky. Thank you for loving me the way you do ❤️ we did it, on to the next chapter x Was devastated to have lost out real wedding video in one of our house moves so this is cobbled together from home videos. Truly the happiest day with the most wonderful memories. Still 20 years later my dance moves need updating ? better sort that out for our next wedding ?? xxx,” she added.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CB0HnZnpvKh/
Later in the day, Oliver surprised his wife with a specially prepared picnic.
Jools on the way to the picnic
He carefully planned the menu, as is to be expected from a top chef, and wrote it up with a “JJ” letterhead. It featured a hand-drawn picnic basket full of food between their initials.
The menu sounded delicious, and included items such as Italian summer fruit, chocolate mousse and crème fraiche, and a blackcurrant leaf cordial.
According to Hello Magazine, the special anniversary surprise came just after the pair were forced to cancel their vow renewal.
This clearly didn’t get them down, as they seem to have made the best of it. They even received flowers for their special day.
The perfect bridesmaids’ dresses are usually tough to nail down. You’ve got a group of people with differing personalities and styles, and you have to cater to all of them, while still going for a style you like personally.
These days, pretty much anything goes for the bridesmaids’ dresses. Over the years, the styles have evolved a lot. Many suggest that the idea of a bridal party stems from Ancient Roman times when 10 witnesses were needed to make a marriage legal. As you may imagine, the “bridesmaids” in Ancient Rome probably were dressed much differently to bridesmaids of today.
According to Elle, in the 15th century, the bridal party would dress exactly like the bride and groom. The purpose of this was to confuse evil spirits about who the newlyweds really were, thus protecting the couple and their marriage. This means that the bridesmaids would all dress the same as the bride.
Later on, in the 17th-century bridesmaids were dressed according to their age. Those in their teens would wear green, those in their 20s would wear brown, and older bridesmaids would be dressed in black.
In the 20th century, the attire for bridesmaids went through multiple changes, according to Canadian Living. From 1901 to 1910, bridesmaids wore dresses with long sleeves, high necklines, full skirts, and also wore plumed hats.
Thereafter, in the 1930s and 1940s during World War II, a more simple style was preferred. The simple design was brought on as a way to save money since it required less material. The 50s and 60s brought a more experimental feeling with it, giving bridesmaids hoop skirts, cocktail looks, and colours galore.
From the 70s to the 90s, the identical bridesmaid trend set in. Every bridesmaid wore a dress of the same colour and style and the dresses were often made using unflattering subjects. Kleinfeld Hudson’s Bay’s Jessica Mulrony told Canadian Living that bridesmaids dresses during this time were purposefully made unflattering.
“I think it was always such a big fear that the bride should never be upstaged by her bridesmaids,” says Mulroney, “so everything had to be very plain and in a million different colours.”
Luckily for bridesmaids across the world, things have changed since then. Today, we don’t stick to a one size fits all idea, nor do we want our bridesmaids to look unappealing. Styles vary quite widely these days. Instead of one defining trend, brides and their bridesmaids incorporate different colours, patterns, and styles to fit their preferences best.
As weddings continue to modernise and couples begin to care less about what their older relatives might think, new ideas for the wedding as a whole are being implemented. One of these, the gender-neutral wedding party, aims to make weddings more inclusive of everyone.
For many, the idea that the wedding party should be gendered (i.e. males have only male friends in the wedding party and females have only female friends in the wedding party), is a bit old school.
Firstly, people have friends of all genders. It seems odd to only include those who identify as the same gender as you do. Secondly, the idea that wedding parties should be gendered is exclusionary for those who do not fall into the gender binary.
By going for a gender-neutral wedding party, you can include those who you have the closest relationships with, without being held back by the idea of gender categorisation.
Anything from terminology to logistics is also easy to work around. There is no need to worry about what you will call the members of the bridal party. Is that really important? However, if you’re set on labelling them, you can go for fun alternatives like “bridesmate”, “bridesman”, “groomsmaid”, or anything that you’d like.
Have you seen our gender-neutral MATE of honour cards?
Made in collaboration with @equalitywed, they’re the perfect way to ask your friends to join your wedding party – whoever they are.
— Gettin’ Hitched Rocks (@HitchedTweets) May 13, 2019
Similarly, you might think that they still need to walk down the aisle in opposite-sex pairs. Why not have some same-sex pairs, or have them walk down the aisle individually?
Further, the gender-neutral wedding party could take some strain off of you when it comes to organising. For example, instead of finding the perfect outfit for each member of the party, you can assign them a colour and they can each go out and find something that they would be comfortable to wear.
The gender-neutral wedding party is perfect for inclusivity and makes all your loved ones feel welcome and comfortable. Who wouldn’t want that?
Academy award-winning actress Viola Davis and her husband, actor and producer Julius Tennon celebrated their 17th wedding anniversary on June 23. She gushed about him in a touching celebratory Instagram post.
Accompanied by photos from their wedding and vow renewal ceremonies, Davis wrote a touching tribute to her husband.
“17 years of marriage to the most beautiful man in the WORLD!!!! You have made my life sweeter and my heart bigger. I prayed for you and God said,”Yes! I have just the right person for you!!!!” Happy Anniversary my love… The best is yet to be❤❤❤,” she said.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CByUCwOhnmM/
As is to be expected, congratulations poured in from a multitude of fellow celebrities, including How To Get Away With Murder co-star Matt McGorry, Gabrielle Union, Octavia Spencer, Kerry Washington, Halle Berry, and more.
According to Essence, Davis said that she met her husband just three weeks after making a special prayer. She said that at the time, she was “the loneliest woman in the world” and was told that she needed to “pray for a husband”.
Speaking to Page Six, she said “I said I wanted a big black man from the South who looked like a football player, who already had children, who maybe had been married before . . . 3 1/2 weeks later I met my husband.”
Tennon said on an episode of OWN’s Black Love that they had met when he overheard Davis talking to a friend about how she didn’t like living in Los Angeles. They ended up chatting and he gave her his card. Davis then took several weeks to call him up, since she felt she wasn’t ready. “I didn’t call [him] because I had bad credit; I was struggling with driving in LA,” she said.
A month after they met, they finally went on their first date. Only 20 minutes after their first date he called her to tell her what a great time he had, and another 20 minutes later he called again to say, “I just want to tell you I got home, and you are a beautiful woman. I’m about to go to sleep, and I just wanted to tell you to have a good night.”
Thereafter, the pair fell in love and tied the knot in 2003. In 2011, they adopted their daughter, Genesis.
