Traditional ritual whereby two persons declare their intent to be together in a committed relationship forever. Has lots of cultural, emotional, and familial baggage attached to it, especially if you're a woman. (Men aren't planning their weddings from the time they are boys.)

WEDDING

The emptying of a necessary-hovise, particularly in London. You have been at an Irish wedding, where black eyes are given instead of favours; saying to one who has a black eye.

The 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue.

Wed"ding (?), n. [AS. wedding.]

Nuptial ceremony; nuptial festivities; marriage; nuptials.

Simple and brief was the wedding, as that of Ruth and of Boaz. Longfellow.

Certain anniversaries of an unbroken marriage have received fanciful, and more or less appropriate, names. Thus, the fifth anniversary is called the wooden wedding; the tenth, the tin wedding; the fifteenth, the crystal wedding; the twentieth, the china wedding; the twenty-fifth, the silver wedding; the fiftieth, the golden wedding; the sixtieth, the diamond wedding. These anniversaries are often celebrated by appropriate presents of wood, tin, china, silver, gold, etc., given by friends.

Wedding is often used adjectively; as, wedding cake, wedding cards, wedding clothes, wedding day, wedding feast, wedding guest, wedding ring, etc.

Let her beauty be her wedding dower. Shak.

Wedding favor, a marriage favor. See under Marriage.

© Webster 1913.