The meeting of the bride and groom is an important and solemn event, because it is held by the parents of the newlyweds. They offer warm wishes to their children, bless the new family and offer parting words. Most often, the parents’ speech is touching and serious, but the meeting can also take place in a comic form with ditties and songs. According to the wedding day plan, the blessing ceremony takes place before the start of the celebration in the restaurant. Almost no meeting of newlyweds is complete without a wedding loaf, which symbolizes the wealth and benefits that the spouses will need to create a lasting and strong union. The newlyweds eat a piece of bread, drink a sip of wine and break glasses - now they can go to the celebration hall to celebrate!

On the wedding portal site you will learn how the meeting of the newlyweds takes place after registration at the registry office, as well as what traditions and customs parents adhere to when meeting their beloved children.

Meeting the bride and groom: important attributes

Parents prepare in advance for the ceremonial meeting of the newlyweds with a loaf of bread. It is necessary to think through every little detail to make the event look decent. To do this, you need to acquire all the necessary attributes and symbols that are traditionally used when meeting newlyweds.

Important attributes for meeting newlyweds:

What icon do young people meet with?

The scenario of even the most modern wedding involves blessing the newlyweds in Christian customs. The tradition of welcoming newlyweds with an icon dates back to ancient times, when in Christian families parents gave icons to spouses to create a “red corner” in the house, where they could always pray and ask for God’s protection. To this day, the meeting of the bride and groom is not complete without church traditions. However, what icon do the parents of the bride and groom greet the young couple with? It has long been customary to bless a son with an icon of the Savior, while the mother and father of the bride bless their daughter with an icon of the Mother of God. In need and in joy, young people can always pray and ask for protection.

How to meet young people after the registry office

Many parents do not know how to greet the newlyweds with bread and salt and what to say as parting words, so they invite an experienced toastmaster to do this. However, the words of the parents carry important weight for the newly-made family, so even if your holiday is being hosted by the host, be sure to say a few sincere words to your son and daughter. A meeting of young people can take place in different formats, but most often it is a fun or touching event.

Two ways to meet young people:

Many of us have at least once attended the wedding of friends, family or colleagues. But there are also those who will be a guest at a wedding for the first time. If you are new to this important matter and do not yet know how to meet young people from the registry office, or your children are getting married and you want to follow all the traditions, our article will give valuable recommendations.

Meeting the newlyweds after the registry office with guests

Immediately after the newlyweds put their signatures on the registration act and accept congratulations from friends and relatives, they leave the registry office. It is this moment of the meeting that must go according to all the rules so that the bride and groom feel like the main characters of the holiday.

So, guests should try to be the first to leave the premises, and line up in a living corridor from the very threshold of the registry office on both sides of the porch. You can also become a semicircle. As soon as the spouses arrive, guests generously shower them with grains of wheat for fertility, miniature candies for a sweet family life, and gold coins for prosperity. In addition, you can shower lovers with rose petals or confetti. At this moment, the guests loudly shout congratulatory words.

One of the guests (this could be a witness) should invite the newlyweds to drink champagne and break the glasses on the ground for good luck. This can be done either immediately after the registry office or in front of the restaurant. The main thing is not to leave garbage behind and appoint someone responsible for cleaning it up.

If your wedding follows its own scenario, guests can shower you with themed items, for example, baby pacifiers or socks, items related to the couple's hobbies, and so on. It is better if all this is in transparent packaging, and one of the guests collects the gifts when the spouses leave the registry office.

How to meet newlyweds from the registry office to parents

In addition to flowers, there are some customs for meeting the bride and groom from the registry office. Depending on nationality and religion, they can be modest or pompous.

According to the Old Slavic tradition, the groom's parents are the first to greet the spouses from the registry office: the mother must hold out the wedding loaf on a towel, the father then offers two glasses of vodka (or glasses of champagne - at the request of the couple themselves). The spouses try the loaf with salt, then thank the groom's mother, pour vodka over their shoulders twice, and the third time they throw away the glasses themselves.

After this, the groom's parents give parting words to the newlyweds, wishing them wealth, children, happiness and endless love. The bride's parents should also congratulate the newlyweds and say their parting words. Today, such a tradition is almost not supported, and the parents of both the groom and the bride come together to meet the newlyweds after the registry office.

In addition to the above customs, there are several more rules according to which the newlyweds should meet after the registry office. For example, when the newlyweds approach the guests greeting them, there should be an empty road behind the bride and groom - no friends or acquaintances are allowed. There should also be an empty space behind the back when the spouses bow to their parents after the blessing.

Another rule for meeting newlyweds is tying the hands of the bride and groom with a towel, with which they go to the banquet hall.

If the celebration is magnificent, the newlyweds can be greeted with a red carpet generously strewn with rose petals and sweets - so that married life is just as sweet and beautiful. Witnesses can present a cage of doves or inflate balloons, which the bride and groom will release into the sky, making their deepest wishes.

Well, the most interesting tradition of meeting the newlyweds after the registry office before the feast at the groom’s house is the closing of the lock. According to legend, in order for the guardian of the husband's house to easily accept the bride, the groom's grandmother must deceive him. This is done like this: while the young people try the loaf and refuse the tempting snake (vodka), the grandmother places a towel across the threshold of the house, hiding a new unlocked lock under it. After this, the groom carries the bride into the house in his arms, stepping over the towel, and the grandmother immediately takes the lock and closes it. The castle itself is secretly kept by the bride's parents, but the key is kept in the groom's house.

Of course, not all couples adhere to certain traditions in celebrating their wedding day, and you can deviate from the standard rules for meeting newlyweds after the registry office by implementing your original ideas, or slightly changing the procedure.

Mendelssohn's march put an end to single life. There is a wedding celebration and a new life ahead. What it will be depends on the husband and wife. In the meantime!.. How do parents greet the newlyweds after the registry office? What to say on such an exciting day for everyone?

What to do?

If the main participants in the wedding ceremony want to hold a meeting of the newlyweds in accordance with Christian traditions, you can contact the local parish priest, where advice will be given and comprehensive answers to all questions will be received.

If this is not possible, then the following is necessary:

• Parents and those invited to the banquet venue should arrive early in order to have time to prepare for the meeting of the newlyweds;
• Prepare those icons with which the son and daughter were blessed for marriage. Don't forget about towels for icons. What icon should we use to greet the newlyweds? The same icons that were used to bless children before the wedding. The son is an icon of Jesus Christ, the daughter is an icon of the Mother of God;
• Bake or buy a loaf, or maybe just bread and salt for the newlyweds. Here you also need a towel on which the loaf will be placed;
• A towel that spreads under the feet of young people;
• Prepare rose petals, hop cones, wheat, rice, millet, candies, coins.

In this case, the bride and groom must be baptized.

Blessing after the registry office

The meeting of the bride and groom before entering the room where the banquet will be held is carried out by the groom's parents with icons and bread and salt, as a new family member is entering their home. The bride's parents greet with glasses filled with champagne. Guests also take part in the meeting. They line up in two lines, forming a corridor. It will not be considered a violation if a young family receives a blessing for a happy marriage after leaving the registry office.

The newly arrived young people go to their parents along an improvised corridor, and the guests shower them with rose petals, hop cones, wheat, rice, oats, and candies. All this has a semantic meaning - a wish for a happy and comfortable life, health and beauty, many children.

A towel is placed on the floor in front of the welcoming parents. The newlyweds approach their parents and stand on a towel, which symbolizes a long and beautiful family life. The groom's mother, and now mother-in-law, blesses the children for family life with icons. It is advisable to think over the words of blessing in advance, but they must be sincere, from the bottom of your heart. You can be blessed with an icon of the Kazan Mother of God for a happy family life. The icons are passed on to the young family, where they are kept.

The father-in-law says parting words to the newlyweds with a loaf of bread.

The young people can each bite or break off a piece of the loaf, add salt and treat each other. There are many meanings for this ritual. It is believed that whoever breaks off the first and most bread from a loaf will dominate the family. And the treat of salted bread is considered to be the last time young people “salt” each other.

Then the main heroes of the occasion are also blessed by the bride's parents with a new life and treated to champagne. Sip a little champagne and pour the rest behind your back. After this, you need to break the glasses by throwing them over your shoulder. For luck!

Parents accompany the young family to the wedding table and circle it three times for the eternal bond of wife and husband. In order to live without quarrels, the young people break the plate and step over the fragments - they will live without quarrels.

Adjustments

Life makes its own adjustments and plans cannot always be fulfilled. It happens that only one of the parents is present at the wedding. It's okay if one parent gives the blessing. If both parents are absent, the blessing can be given by the eldest relative or godparents.

There are often cases when the bride and groom are not baptized, then their meeting after the registry office will take place with a wedding loaf and champagne, without icons.

At many weddings, children are greeted with icons by the mothers of the bride and groom, and by fathers with bread and salt and champagne. Is it correct? If you couldn’t get an answer to this question from the priest, but decided to give the blessing this way, do as you decided. The main thing is that everything is done from the heart, sincerely.

New traditions appear, and old ones are forgotten. In those days, when wedding feasts were held in the house of the groom's parents, the young husband carried his wife into the house in his arms. There was a lock on the threshold, which was then locked with a key. Then the key was thrown away. Now there are locks on bridges and trees.

What's reprehensible about this? The actions of parents are aimed at ensuring that their children have a happy life. Who doesn't want this?

Correct implementation of all traditions and rituals does not guarantee a long and happy life for a young family. The main guarantor of family happiness and well-being are the husband and wife.

Every city, village, and sometimes even families have their own interpretations of well-known wedding traditions, customs and rituals. The final decision on how a particular ceremony will take place at a particular wedding is made by the newlyweds and their parents. As an example, presenter Natalya Soboleva (Mogilev, Belarus) offers her interpretation of the famous wedding ceremony of meeting newlyweds at a restaurant.

Text: Natalya Soboleva, presenter (Mogilev, Belarus)

The meeting of the newlyweds usually takes place on the threshold of the restaurant (cafe, canteen) where the wedding is taking place. The young parents greet them, and the guests become a corridor. If the parents are divorced or absent (or one of them is absent), any other people close and well known to the couple can meet - godparents, uncles, aunts, and so on. In the “corridor” that the guests build and where the newlyweds will go, a carpet or path is laid out.

In the hands of the welcoming parents are a loaf of bread, an icon, two glasses of vodka, salt and a spoon of honey. The loaf and salt are held by the groom’s mother on the “bread and salt” handbrake, the icon is held by the bride’s mother.

First, the groom's mother presents the newlyweds with a wedding loaf. They can kiss it, break it off or bite it off. The last option, in my opinion, does not look the best: in practice, the bride and groom literally “bite into” the loaf, and everyone around shouts: “Who can bite off the most!!!” It happened that half of the pie was broken off, and then what to do with it?

In my opinion, the best option is to break off a piece, add salt (and mom will say: “Salt each other for the last time.”) and feed each other.

Then it’s the icon’s turn - she needs to be kissed. The question often arises: what should an icon be like? The mother of the bride escorts her daughter out of the house with an icon of the Mother of God, and the mother of the groom sees off her son with an icon of St. Nicholas, and which one to greet? There is no clear answer here. Usually they meet either two at once or one of them. The question can be further clarified with the priest in the church.

After this, glasses of vodka are presented by one of the dads as “the last bitter thing that will happen in life.” Do not pour mineral water or champagne into glasses, because the bubbles will be visible. Even if you can’t drink when you’re young, still pour vodka. You can simply sip the drink and pour the rest over your left shoulder.

After this, the glasses need to be broken: according to custom, an empty cup is not left, the glass is broken for good luck. Then the newlyweds are treated to honey.

At the end of the ceremony, the bride and groom invite all the guests to come to the feast, they walk first along the path, and behind them it is rolled up so that no one else will step on it. At this time, guests shower them with rice, coins, rose petals or grains.

Parents can congratulate the newlyweds together or separately. As a rule, they are given the floor twice - during the blessing of bread and salt and at the banquet. At the registry office, after a standard ceremony, it is enough to give the newlyweds flowers and a hug; no one will demand passionate speeches.

How to prepare for a performance

• At a wedding reception, parents are given the second or third toast. Then they give the floor to grandparents, and only then to friends.
• Your congratulations may not be limited only to wishes, it should include parental advice and words of support.
• It’s better if the groom’s mother says the first words. If she has prepared poetry, it’s time to read it. The guests are not yet tired, and all attention will be focused on the speakers. Dads are often taciturn; they may speak later.
• Try to rehearse your speech: no one will listen to a ballad, even an interesting one, for a long time. The optimal speaking time is 3-5 minutes.
• If one of the parents is embarrassed to speak in front of the audience, the other can congratulate on his behalf.
• Do not try to supplement your speech with an abundance of quotes or fanciful comparisons. A simple but sincere congratulation sounds much better and more correct, and leave the beauty to the toastmaster.
• Refrain from criticism and moralizing. There should be no ambiguity in your speech. Humor should not offend anyone present. Your speech should not include stories that could make the groom feel uncomfortable.
• From experience, we can advise you to avoid poetry, because it all comes down to “congratulations, we wish you happiness and joy.” They should be written for your son's wedding and reflect the characteristics of the couple.
• You can address your son in your congratulations, but be sure to mention his wife, because from now on they are family, do not offend your chosen one with inattention.
• Don’t memorize the text, speak in your own words, take pauses. Chatting or being confused and silent are the worst qualities of a speaker. Never sight read.

Congratulations speech plan for the groom's parents

Appeal. Newlyweds, young people, children, calling by name is an excellent start for a festive speech. Express your joy and pride at being present at such a wonderful event.

Interesting points. If you can't remember them or are afraid of getting confused, you can skip this part. However, you can tell a couple of interesting stories about your son’s childhood or about how the young people met.

Blessing with a loaf from the groom's parents

Father's speech. We bless you for a long and wonderful married life. I would like to wish that your family has prosperity and prosperity, and that the fire of love always burns in your hearts. Be happy in the marriage that you sealed today with the exchange of rings and a kiss. May your life be easy, beautiful and sweet, like this loaf. Take care and appreciate each other! And you will always have parental support and blessings!

Mother's speech. Dear children, accept this loaf as a symbol of blessing for a happy and kind life together! Try a piece, treat each other. May the warmth that this holy bread preserved for you always live in your hearts. Let there always be prosperity in your home, and let there be a treat for every guest. Let the distribution of the first wedding food be the beginning of your hospitality. We bless you, children, live in peace and harmony! Never forget that from now on you are a family, and you make all decisions together. Be happy!

By showering the young with flower petals, grain and coins, parents wish wealth, happiness and prosperity.

Words from the groom's parents at the banquet

The father of the groom may speak first. His speech is most often short, but succinct.

Example 1. Dear children! When I got married and was preparing to become the head of my family, my father gave me valuable advice: “In difficult times, just shut up and count to 100.” If my wife and I quarreled, then in order not to say too much to her, I used my father’s advice, and it always worked. Maybe this is also why my mother and I have been living in perfect harmony for decades! I wish you to live a happy and long life, not to accumulate grievances - they destroy, to work on your relationships every day. Love each other, respect and appreciate every moment spent together! Congratulations!

Example 2. Son, today you are standing on the threshold of a new life. As popular wisdom says, “Seek your happiness, and if you find it, take care.” You have chosen a wonderful companion, and your first duty is to make her happy. When you first picked up a hammer and hit your finger instead of a nail, you didn’t cry. To your mother’s questions you answered “it doesn’t hurt, I’m a man.” I hope you will prove with every action that you are a real man and the head of the family. Children, I wish you to live a happy and long life, without knowing sorrows and insults. We wish you well-being, prosperity and joy! Congratulations!

Moms are always more sentimental, but still try to pull yourself together.

Example 1. Dear son! Today there is great joy in our family - my dad and I have a daughter. Your meeting is a gift from heaven, but now the main thing is to preserve feelings and fire in your hearts. Family is work, but it is rewarded. Love in the eyes of your soul mate, children's laughter, tears of pride from parents. Be happy, our dear children. Plant trees, raise wonderful children, strengthen your relationships! Your happiness is more valuable to us than all gifts! May there always be prosperity and harmony in your home, and may your love illuminate your path and be your best advisor! May you live happily ever after!

Example 2. My beloved son. A wise man was once asked what riches should be valued in life. And he answered: the first thing is health, because you can’t buy it for any amount of wealth. And the second is a person who is always nearby. You, son, are very lucky, because you met a wonderful girl. Make sure that she is behind you, like behind a stone wall, so that bitterness and resentment never appear in her eyes, and the smile never leaves her lips. Daughter, support and guide your spouse, become his guiding star - and for you he will move mountains! I congratulate you from the bottom of my heart! I wish happiness, luck and prosperity to settle in your home for a long time. Take care of each other, and keep the flame that you lit today! Bitterly.

Mom and dad can say congratulations one by one, in the form of a dialogue. For example:

Mom: - Our dear son!

Dad: - And daughter!

Mom: - Despite the fact that today you will follow your own path in life, this does not mean that our paths have diverged. Dad and I will always be there when needed. Let us help you with advice

Dad: - And by the way. Walk hand in hand, respect and appreciate each other.

Mom: - May life smile at you and give you only pleasant surprises.

Dad: - Happiness, prosperity, good luck to your young family!

Mom: - Let the union be long and strong, together you will reach those heights that cannot be conquered separately.

Dad: - Advice and love!

Mom: - We love you very much, children! Bitterly!

This day is certainly important and exciting for you, but you knew that it would come someday. Rejoice and be proud of your child, and leave worries for later.