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World Wedding Day: Weddings in Different Countries

World Marriage Day is celebrated every year on the second Sunday of February. Its goal is to praise the husband and wife as the bedrock of the family and to note their loyalty, love, and joy in daily married life.
Sputnik
The history of World Marriage Day began in 1981 when couples in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in the US, requested that the city's mayor, the state's governor and the church's bishop declare February 14 "We Believe in Marriage" Day.
This day became so successful that people have started celebrating it in other countries as well. In 1983, the name was changed to "World Wedding Day" and it was decided to hold it every year on the second Sunday in February. The celebration of World Wedding Day continues to spread to more countries every year.
Sputnik created a photo gallery in which you can see photos of wedding ceremonies in different countries!
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In this Sunday, Dec. 23, 2018, file photo, Indian brides sit together for a group photograph during a mass wedding in Surat, India. Two hundred and sixty one young couples, including six Muslim and three Christian couples tied the knot at the mass wedding hosted by Indian businessman Mahesh Savani, who has been funding the weddings of fatherless girls in the city of Surat for several years. Weddings in India are expensive affairs with the bride's family traditionally expected to pay the groom a large dowry of cash and gifts. (AP Photo/Ajit Solanki, File)
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A Japanese bride wearing a pure white kimono rides a boat with her parents for her wedding in Itako city, some 80 kilometres northeast of Tokyo, May 29, 2016, as part of the annual Ayame (iris) flower festival. - Yomeiri-fune (a boat escorting a bride) and local Japanese entertainment is performed during the festival period. (Photo by KAZUHIRO NOGI / AFP)
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Hafiz Mohammad Awais, groom, center, and bride Musfira Shams, right, during their wedding ceremony in Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Pakistan, Thursday, March 17, 2022. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)
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Britain's Prince Harry and Meghan Markle leave after their wedding ceremony at St. George's Chapel in Windsor Castle in Windsor, near London, England, Saturday, May 19, 2018. (Andrew Matthews/pool photo via AP)
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Ecuadorian Bryan Rosel and his wife Magdalena Llanque -who met more than a year ago through social media- kiss after getting married during a mass wedding ceremony where fifty couples got married at the shore of lake Titicaca in the Aymara district of Acora in Puno, Peru, on August 20, 2022. - The public act was organized by the local municipality and held applying a mixture of modern and ancestral Andean customs, including the presence of their native Yatiri (Shaman) who made a payment to the Pachamama (Mother Earth) to wish good to the couples.
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In this Thursday, April 9, 2020 photo, Ahmed Khaled al-Kaabi and his bride Ruqaya Rahim sit during their wedding in Najaf, Iraq, hardest hit town by coronavirus in the country with government banned large public gatherings. Unwilling to postpone the wedding, al-Kaabi asked the local security forces to help him wed his beloved. The police responded by providing the groom vehicles blasting music to bring his bride to the family home for a small celebration of just six people. (AP Photo/Anmar Khalil)
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Palestinian bride Rabiha al-Rajby and groom Mohyeldin Nasrallah start their wedding ceremony from the ruins of al-Rajby's home in east Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan, Saturday, June 11, 2022. Israeli authorities demolished the building, displacing its 35 residents, last month, saying it was built without municipal permit as part of the wider struggle between the city and Palestinian residents. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)
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Syrian women escort bride Heba (C) as they participate in celebrations during the first wedding after the ouster of the Islamic State (IS) group (banned in Russia) from the eastern city of Raqa, in the western suburb of Jazra, on October 27, 2017.
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Cetin Yildirimer (C-R), a 29-year-old former tour guide, and his new wife Zilan (C-L) board a boat during their wedding ceremony to tour a lake which has submerged the ancient town of Hasankeyf as part of the Ilisu Dam project on the Tigris River, on September 16, 2020, in the new town of Hasankeyf constructed by the government to re-locate residents, in Turkey's southeastern Batman province. - The flooding of the area for the Ilisu Dam project has erased the original town Hasankeyf that stood here for 12,000 years. Residents have been re-located to a new version of the town on higher grounds. The dam, completed and filling with water since last year, is meant to bring electricity to an underdeveloped region that officials hope to revive with jobs and long-needed investment. Turkish officials want to turn the new artificial lake into a tourist attraction featuring boat rides, jet skiing and paragliding.
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A bride, wearing a veil, rides a horse heading to the chuch during the traditional Galicnik Wedding ceremony in the Macedonia's western village of Galicnik, on July 18, 2021. - Traditional Galicnik Wedding is held every year on the first weekend after the Orthodox St. Peter's day. (Photo by Robert ATANASOVSKI / AFP)
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A couple burns incense during a collective wedding ceremony in downtown Hanoi on October 15, 2022. (Photo by Nhac NGUYEN / AFP)
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A model wears the wedding gown for Chanel's Haute Couture Fall-Winter 2021-2022 fashion collection presented at the Palais Galliera which hosts the museum of fashion and fashion history, Tuesday, July 6, 2021 in Paris. (AP Photo/Lewis Joly)
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Newly-weds in Russia's Sochi
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An Iranian wedding ceremony
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Cameron Rae (L) and Emmy Gale (R) ski while celebrating their wedding day during the Loveland Ski Area 26th Annual Valentine's Day Mountaintop Matrimony held near Georgetown, Colorado on February 14, 2017. - Over 70 couples gathered to either wed or renew their vows during the ceremony which was officiated by Minister Harry Heilmann, of the Universal Life Church. (Photo by Jason Connolly / AFP)
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Lebanese groom Tommy kisses the hand of his bride Nadine's while water skiing dressed in their wedding clothes in the waters off the bay of Jounieh, north of Beirut, on May 29, 2017. - Tommy and Nadine got married in a civil wedding in Cyprus last week before celebrating in Lebanon. (Photo by PATRICK BAZ / AFP)
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Brides wearing their wedding dress hold a flashmob protest against the postponement of their marriages due to the strict protocol of all religious ceremonies within the coronavirus pandemic, on June 7, 2020 by the Trevi fountain in Rome, as the country eases its lockdown aimed at curbing the spread of the COVID-19 infection, caused by the novel coronavirus.
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A couple poses for wedding photographs during the Qixi Festival, also known as Chinese Valentine's Day, in Beijing on August 14, 2021. (Photo by Jade Gao / AFP)
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