African American Wedding Customs & Traditions
By Nily Glaser
© Copiright 2007 Revised 2021 Nily Glaser Gan Publishing, All rights reserved,
Marriage is the strongest bond the world has ever known. It is a pledge meant to last a lifetime.
A wedding ceremony occurs when a bride and a groom solemnly pledge themselves to one another for a lifetime, some say for eternity, in the presence of friends and family.
Celebrated today, as it has been throughout history, even to Biblical days, marriage and a wedding have been considered a sacred and solemn yet happiest event. Every culture considers a wedding, when the bride and groom enter their marriage as two individuals and becoming inextricably a part of each other, creating a new family, as the highest of all celebrations.
As the saying goes, Love makes the world go around.
Most cultures celebrate the love, devotion and commitment called wedding, with unique customs and traditions. Because the wedding is a wonderful and touching event, brides and grooms want both ceremony and reception to be personalized and unique to them. Thus, they look for meaningful experiences and often adopt customs and traditions of cultures other than their own.
The USA and recently to many other countries have become homes to people from all over the world. These people enrich the cultures with their Old Country customs, traditions and cuisine. It is not a surprise then, that many of the wedding traditions and wedding customs that are so beautiful, have been adopted by brides and grooms of all backgrounds who found them meaningful. In fact some traditions have become an integral pare of the modern wedding ceremony and reception.
If you are interested in the customs and traditions of a specific ethnic group click on it.
Broom – Jumping the Broom 
Jumping the broom, is a custom that has its roots in Africa to symbolizes the beginning of making a home together.
It took on a deeper meaning when during the days of slavery in the USA, African American couples were not legally permitted to marry.
As a public announcement and a statement of their love and commitment, a man and woman simply lay a broom on the floor at their altar and jumped over a broom together with joined hands, pronouncing their entrance into matrimony. The broom is often decorated with symbolic flowers and ribbons,
Today, African-American couples tend to include this custom in their wedding ceremony. After the big jump, the broom is usually saved as a chrished wedding memento.
Cowrie shells 
Some African-American brides wear cowrie shell necklaces, and or decorate their attire with cowrie shell because, cowrie shells are believed to encourage fertility.
A note of interest: Cowrie shells were once used as money. Today they are used for purification and as a symbol of beauty and power.
Tasting the Four Elements
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Nily Glaser is the founder of A-wedding Day magazine, a very popular Wedding Resource, and Information Center. She is a published author who wrote and published the A-wedding Day Wedding Planning Guide, Book. She writes important articles and has presented workshops for wedding professionals all over the USA.
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Check the following rituals, customs and traditions:
For African American wedding traditions CLICK HERE
For Jewish wedding traditions CLICK HERE
For Latin wedding traditions and Mexican wedding traditions CLICK HERE
