A Bit on Belgian Weddings…From an Actual Belgian
Here’s a quite relevant post from a Belgian blogger known as Goofball. Goofball is, amongst other things, an interesting person, not only to bounce multicultural ideology off of but also as a person with more than a fair amount of knowledge in flemish culture. Obviously most Flemings know a great deal about their culture, but Goofball often goes out of her way to explain the meanings behind her culture and she’s often a terrific resource when I want to get facts straight or want to know more about certain culural aspects I encounter here. So on that note, here is another informative piece for you regarding weddings here in Flanders.
“Are you going to have the ceremony outside”
“2 wedding ceremonies, huh, what do you mean?”
What seems total obvious to me often causes confusion when I am chatting with some foreign friends. I think I might have an idea what a North-American wedding could look like for as far as the many foreign movies and series on tv.
I picture a church or a beautiful outside park or … with a minister (or anyone authorised to marry 2 people) waiting in front and a nervous groom with his groomsmen. Then music starts and multiple bridesmaids walk down the isle and the bride follows with her dad as last.
I picture a church or a beautiful outside park or … with a minister (or anyone authorised to marry 2 people) waiting in front and a nervous groom with his groomsmen. Then music starts and multiple bridesmaids walk down the isle and the bride follows with her dad as last.
Belgian weddings aren’t fundamentally different. Yet we have one big contraint: the only legally accepted wedding is the “civil marriage” at the town hall executed by an authorised civil servant. If you want a religious ceremony….great, go ahead AFTER the civil marriage. But as church and state are seperated, Belgium only considers you as a married couple by that civil wedding. This dates back from the Napoleontic laws and is still a current rule in Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, France, Turkey, Argentina and Russia.
Each city can have its own regulations as when these civil weddings can take place. In Leuven for example you can marry on Tuesday afternoon, Wednesday morning, Friday afternoon and Saturday morning. In the city I grew up, all weddings were on Friday afternoon with some rare exceptions on Saturday morning. As for the location: that is the wedding hall in the city hall (of the city one of the partners is registered?).
You must apply for your wedding at least 2 weeks in advance and maximum 6 months in advance (whereas you must book your wedding venue a year in advance on average!). Your ID, birth certificates and all other necessary documents get checked.
…and you must answer the question “will you exchange the rings then or later? ” , which is basically the question whether this is going to be your only wedding ceremony or not.
In the past all wedding applications were posted on a bulletin board in the city offices to make them public and enable anyone who’d oppose to this wedding to make an objection. Much to the chagrin of the old gossip ladies in town who’d enjoy such bulletin boards, this measure isn’t executed anymore. Our administrations have figured out there’s probably more modern ways to find out when a wedding is about to be fulfilled whereas these boards might not quite be as efficient anymore in a global world.
The actual civil marriage is a quite boring brief ceremony where in many cases only the wedding couple, their 2 witnesses and the close family show up. It’s not uncommon that the next wedding couple walks in already when the previous couple is leaving the room. Some cities have the courtesy to book a gap of 5 to 10 minutes in between 2 scheduled couples. In Leuven the wedding conveyer belt starts a new ceremoney every 15 minutes. You are officially not allowed to have a toast inside the city hall building because you need to move on.
As you might have noticed, this mandatory civil marriage lacks a tiny little bit the possibility to personalise the ceremony or cater your personal wishes and style.
So although the Belgian population is becoming ever more secular, a lot of couples opt for a second (religious) wedding ceremony, most often a catholic service in church. Weddings outside in parks etc are still quite rare. But having 2 wedding ceremonies is on the other hand quite common.
Since the legal requirement states that the civil marriage must take place before any other wedding ceremony and it’s not always easy to execute the 2 ceremonies on the same day, it’s quite possible to have couples that have their civil marriage a couple of days, weeks, more than a year before the other one. The big party with all invited guests usually takes place then the second day. Sometimes this is also done for practical reasons such as mortgage negotiations and fiscal benefits.
Anyway we had booked our wedding location and church 15 months in advance. That’s truly how you determine your wedding date in Belgium, not in the reverse order. Much to my relieve in January I heard at the city administration that there were still free wedding slots on our wedding day so we will combine both ceremonies at the same day.
…counting down!
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that’s really interesting–different than in the US where you need the marriage certificate not 2 ceremonies.
It is incredibly amazing to me in a country that is so catholic that it is set up this way….I mean, from my perspective, get it done quick and then go party…I always died at weddings that were a full mass (catholic obviously) or for that matter a whole huge jewish ceremony which can be as long an convoluted as a mass.
I’m actually interested in knowing other kinds of traditions…like I read somewhere that there is a family handerchief that is handed down to each girl and her name is stitched onto it…things like that too….cool cultural things!
although i hope your wedding is lovely and wonderful and fantastic….
if i had it to do over again…
i’d totally just go down to the city hall in jeans.
that’s what i will do next time.
KIDDING! there probably won’t be a next time…