🇮🇳 India
A Hindu bride often wears red, maroon or gold in silk, such as a Banarasi or Kanjivaram sari, or a lehenga. Bengali brides wear red and white, and Kerala brides often wear a cream and gold kasavu sari.
Read: Wedding sariThe wedding dress and what the couple wear: compared across 16 places
The same wedding idea in 16 places, grouped by region. Each entry is a short portrait; follow the link for the full tradition.
South Asia 2Southeast Asia 1East Asia 3Central Asia and the Caucasus 1Middle East 1North Africa 1Sub-Saharan Africa 2Europe 2North America 1Latin America and the Caribbean 1Oceania 1
South Asia
🇱🇰 Sri Lanka
The Kandyan bride wears the osariya, a sari draped in a particular layered style, with ornate jewellery, and the groom wears a Kandyan costume with a long cloth and a decorated jacket. The bride and groom dress as if in the old royal court.
Read: OsariyaSoutheast Asia
🇵🇭 Philippines
The groom wears a barong Tagalog, a sheer embroidered shirt in pineapple or abaca fibre, over a white undershirt. The bride may wear a white gown or a terno with butterfly sleeves, with matching cloth cords, the yugal, drawn around the couple.
Barong Tagalog, being writtenEast Asia
🇨🇳 China
Red is the colour of the Han bride, who traditionally wore a phoenix crown and an embroidered robe, and later a qipao. Many couples today wear Western white for the ceremony and red for the tea.
Qipao, being written🇰🇷 South Korea
The couple wear hanbok for the pyebaek, the formal greeting to the groom's parents, the bride in red and yellow with a hwarot (ceremonial robe) and the groom in a blue or dark robe with a hat. A Western gown and suit for the main ceremony are now more usual.
Hanbok, being written🇯🇵 Japan
The shiromuku is a pure white kimono worn with a white headdress, the tsunokakushi or wataboshi. After the ceremony the bride changes to an uchikake, a heavily embroidered robe, often red, and then a Western gown at the reception.
Shiromuku, being writtenCentral Asia and the Caucasus
🇺🇿 Uzbekistan
Brides wear silk ikat or velvet embroidered with gold thread, and the groom wears a robe called a chapan with a embroidered skullcap, the doppi. Fabrics are chosen for the colour and patterns of the region, with Bukhara famous for gold embroidery.
Doppi, being writtenMiddle East
🇹🇷 Turkey
The bride wears white today, and the night before the wedding the kina gecesi is held in a red veil with red henna and a red outfit. A red ribbon, kirmizi kusak, is tied around the bride's waist by a married relative, a gift of luck.
Henna night, being writtenNorth Africa
🇲🇦 Morocco
The bride wears several outfits over the wedding, carried in on an amariya (a decorated platform), including caftans and takchitas in silk, gold thread and embroidery. A bride may change seven times, each with different jewellery.
Caftan, being writtenSub-Saharan Africa
🇬🇭 Ghana
Couples of the Akan often wear kente, a handwoven cloth of silk and cotton with patterns named for proverbs. Other peoples wear their own prints, and the groom's family may give the bride cloth at the engagement.
Read: Kente cloth🇿🇦 South Africa
Zulu brides and grooms wear beaded jewellery and leather and cloth, with the bride in a skirt and a beaded necklace, and the Xhosa bride wears layered cloth and beads. Ndebele houses use bold beaded aprons.
Zulu people, being writtenEurope
🇬🇧 United Kingdom
The white gown became fashionable after Queen Victoria's 1840 wedding, and the groom wears a morning suit or a lounge suit. In Scotland the kilt in the family tartan is a long-standing alternative.
Read: Wedding dress🇳🇴 Norway
Brides in rural regions wear the bunad, a regional costume with silver brooches and a crown (the brudekrone), often handed down. The crown may be lent by the church for local brides.
Bunad, being writtenNorth America
🇺🇸 United States
Most brides wear a white gown, and the something old, new, borrowed and blue saying applies. Other communities use their own: Navajo couples wear velvet and turquoise, and Native Hawaiian couples may wear a maile lei.
Read: Wedding dressLatin America and the Caribbean
🇬🇹 Guatemala
Maya brides wear the huipil, an embroidered blouse with patterns that mark their village, and a woven belt, the faja. Each town has its own colours and designs.
Read: HuipilOceania
🇳🇿 New Zealand
Maori brides and grooms may wear a korowai, a cloak of feathers, or a cloak given by the family, and carry greenstone (pounamu) as a blessing. Many wear Western clothes with traditional pieces added.
Korowai, being writtenAbout this page
Written by the EveryShaadi desk with AI assistance. Customs differ from place to place and family to family. If this is your tradition and we have it wrong, tell us.