A while back I did a video discussing different wedding traditions and whether we were planning to do them at our wedding, or not. The traditions were sent in by my viewers and since they are from all over the world, many of the wedding practices I discussed aren’t common in the Netherlands. I thought it’d be fun if I walked you through what a Dutch wedding looks like; the bare bones of it, all the elements that are expected and present at nearly every wedding.
Getting Ready
In the morning, the bride and groom will get ready, usually separately. It’s customary for the bride to be assisted by close female family members and friends.
The groom will then come pick up the bride, and present her with the bridal bouqet. Afterwards everybody travels to the ceremony location.
The Ceremony
This is where thrings really start to differ from weddings in other cultures. In a Dutch wedding ceremony, a few important people need to be present:
The civil registry official
This is the person who’s legally qualified to perform the wedding ceremony. It can either be someone who works at the municipality, or a professional wedding official, or someone who gets a special qualification to perform just this one specific wedding ceremony. If the couple would like to get married by a friend or relative, this person has to be sworn in by the court of law.
The witnesses
Every wedding in the Netherlands has to be attended by two to four witnesses who can testify to having seen the couple get married. The witnesses sign the marriage certificate. It’s considered a great honour to be picked for this role, and it’s the closest thing we have to the maid of honor and best man. The witnesses have no official duties besides witnessing the ceremony, but they’ll often be involved in organising the bachelor and bachelorette parties.
The master of ceremony
The master of ceremony is the person who makes sure the wedding runs smoothly. They are the designated person to point guests to their seats before the ceremony, and ask them to move to the reception location afterward. Basically, they run everybody through what needs to happen when. The master of ceremony will also often be the contact for any vendors during the wedding, and they might announce when someone’s about to give a speech or an activity is about to begin. You don’t need a master of ceremony to be legally married, but most weddings will have one for practical reasons.
Dutch ceremonies are fairly basic, compared to those of some other cultures. There’s no particular order in which people enter the location; the guests sit down, with the front rows usually being reserved for the family. The witnesses sit close to the table where the marriage certificate will be signed.
The couple then enters, either together, one by one, or accompanied by a parent. The registry official will then hold a speech, after which the couple exchanges vows and rings. Then the couple, the witnesses and the registry official sign the marriage certificate and leave.
That’s the official part done. After this, the guests will often gather in front of the ceremony location and form an “erehaag”. They stand in two rows as to form a corridor for the couple to walk through, while the couple gets showered with rice or flower petals.
The Reception
After the ceremony there’s usually a reception, where the guests get to congratulate the newlyweds. This is also the moment when the wedding cake is cut and eaten. At some weddings, some of the guests will hold a speech or perform something for the couple, like a song or a short sketch.
The Dinner
The dinner is usually held with a select party of guests; some people only invite their direct family members and witnesses. There aren’t many traditions surrounding the dinner. The type of event it is and what food is served depends on the couple’s preferences, although I do feel like the go-to Dutch wedding dinner is a three or four course meal of French cuisine. Usually there will be a speech at dinner as well.
The Party
After dinner, there is one final celebration in the form of a party. There will usually be a band or a DJ, and plenty of drinks to go around.
And that’s more or less it! I feel like Dutch weddings generally tend to be quite simple and straight to the point, which fits into Dutch culture just perfectly.
Our own wedding will roughly follow these lines as well, so contrary to what it looked like in my wedding tradition video, there are actually quite a few traditions we are sticking to.
I hope this was interesting to read if you’re not yet familiar with Dutch wedding practices. If you care to share, I’d love to hear how this differs from a typical wedding in your country!
I just watched a Dutch wedding in the show on Prime Video on “The Adulterer”series. They did not exchange rings. I’m a Wedding Planner in the USA for 30 years. I always want to watch weddings in other countries. Was this wedding done incorrectly since there was no ring exchange or is this just a made for TV wedding ceremony?
Not exchanging rings is definitely not typical, as far as I’m aware! Everyone I know who’s married has wedding rings
Many wedding guests here in the US are provided with tiny bags of birdseed. Following the ceremony or reception, if held immediately afterwards, guests gather outside near where the newly married couple will exit and leave the venue. There they open their bags and rain seed instead of rice as they see the couple off. Bubbles, as mentioned, are also used.
Here in the United States, there are some traditional things that seem different from Dutch weddings. You’ve heard of “something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue” in which the bride traditionally has one thing for each category. I personally didn’t do this when I got married because I thought it was stupid lol, but a lot of brides still do this.
It’s also customary for the groom to not see the bride before the wedding. Not everyone does this, but my husband insisted on not seeing me until I was walking down the aisle. I guess some people think it’s bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the ceremony.
Most American couples kiss after being pronounced husband and wife, then they walk back down the aisle as husband and wife. We have a “receiving line” much like white you described, where the guests line up and congratulate the couple, and throw rice or blow bubbles as the couple walks by.
Usually the people who make speeches at the reception are the bride and groom’s parents as well as the Maid of Honor and Best Man. Sometimes the officiant (the person who performed the wedding ceremony) will also give a speech.
After dinner it’s standard in America for the bride and groom to have their first dance as a married couple. Then the bride dances with her father or father figure, and the groom dances with his mother or maternal figure.
We also have the custom of the bride and groom cutting their wedding cake together, then feeding each other a piece of their cake.
Not everyone in my country does weddings the same way, but these customs are pretty common for American weddings.
I’m Australian and these are very similar to our customs as well. I would say that at almost every wedding, the bride walking down the aisle is the first time the groom has seen the bride that day, if not the day before. I’ve never heard of been involved with a wedding where this was not the case. We also have a tradition of giving horseshoes (no longer real ones, fabric, lace or ribbon ones now, with a strap to hang from the wrist) to the bride as good luck as she walks back down the receiving line. We also throw the bouquet for unmarried girls to catch, and the groom often throws the garter, but this is less common. How fun to see different traditions!