Buddhist Wedding Traditions

Buddhist weddings unite ancient wisdom with contemporary love, creating ceremonies that transcend social contracts to become profound spiritual journeys. Unlike standardized Western liturgies, these sacred unions bloom in remarkable diversity, from Sri Lanka’s elaborate Poruwa ceremonies to Japan’s minimalist Zen weddings, each reflecting universal Buddhist teachings through distinct cultural lenses.

At their core, Buddhist weddings recognize marriage not as a worldly affair but as an opportunity for mutual awakening. The soft glow of butter lamps, the fragrance of sandalwood incense, and the resonance of chanted blessings create a sacred container for two souls committing to walk the path together.

The Middle Way in Partnership

Every Buddhist marriage embodies the Middle Way, the Buddha’s teaching of balance between extremes. Partners learn to navigate the delicate dance between unity and autonomy, supporting each other’s spiritual growth while maintaining individual practice. This equilibrium extends throughout married life: sharing responsibilities without losing personal identity, embracing joy without attachment, facing hardship without despair.

Karma and Interconnection

Buddhist couples view their meeting through the lens of karma, understanding their union as the fruition of countless past actions. This perspective transforms their relationship: challenges become opportunities to resolve old patterns together, while moments of joy are appreciated as seeds planted long ago now flowering. Rather than fatalism, this understanding brings profound gratitude and responsibility to the present moment.

The Five Precepts as Partnership

When embraced by two people building a life together, Buddhism’s Five Precepts become relationship practices:

• Non-harming: Creating emotional and physical sanctuary
• Non-stealing: Respecting boundaries and building trust
• Sexual integrity: Honoring intimacy as sacred connection
• Truthful speech: Establishing honest communication as foundation
• Mindful consumption: Supporting mutual clarity and moderation

Choosing an Auspicious Date

Buddhist couples seek more than calendar convenience when selecting their wedding date. In Thailand, Sri Lanka, and Tibet, they consult monks and astrologers who study astronomical charts and numerological calculations to find cosmic alignment. The perfect date harmonizes both partners’ birth charts while avoiding inauspicious planetary configurations.

When the chosen date coincides with Buddhist holy days, the full moon of Vesak or a teacher’s enlightenment anniversary, couples receive this as the universe’s blessing on their union.

Merit-Making Together

The weeks before a Buddhist wedding become a spiritual intensification through merit-making practices:

• Liberation rituals: Couples release caged birds or fish at dawn markets, each freed creature carrying prayers for universal liberation
• Dana offerings: Preparing meals for monks teaches cooperative rhythm essential for marriage
• Temple contributions: Commissioning Buddha statues or sponsoring repairs builds literal foundation for spiritual life
• Retreat practice: Sitting together in meditation reveals how to maintain individual practice within shared space

Honoring Family Lineages

Before individuals unite, family lineages must converge through blessing rituals:

Chinese traditions feature tea ceremonies where couples kneel before elders in seniority order, offering tea with both hands. Each sip signifies acceptance; each red envelope carries generational wisdom.

Thai families perform sai sin ceremonies, connecting wrists with sacred thread to create a visible web of relationships the couple will extend.

Tibetan traditions include receiving lung (oral transmissions) from lamas, ancient mantras passed through generations now entrusted to the new couple.

Transforming Space into Sacred Ground

Buddhist weddings begin by converting ordinary venues into temporary Pure Lands through symbolic elements:

Lotus arrangements dominate decorations, each bloom teaching Buddhism’s core metaphor: roots in mud (samsara), stems through water (the path), flowers opening skyward (enlightenment). Colors carry meaning, white for purity, red for compassion, blue for wisdom.

Incense spirals create visible prayers, their smoke carrying aspirations while fragrance spreads equally in all directions, representing merit radiating to all beings.

Butter lamps transform spaces into constellations of wisdom-light. Tibetan ceremonies often feature exactly 108 lamps, one per mala bead, each flame dispelling ignorance.

Buddha images preside at the ceremonial heart, perhaps heirloom bronzes or newly commissioned statues showing the earth-touching mudra, blessing the couple’s moment of commitment.

The Monastic Paradox

Buddhist weddings present a beautiful contradiction: monks who’ve renounced worldly life, including marriage, provide essential blessings. This resolves through understanding that monks don’t sanctify the marriage (a civil matter) but offer spiritual protection and guidance for the journey ahead.

Monks begin paritta chanting before dawn, their voices weaving protective verses around the couple. These ancient Pali or Sanskrit syllables connect modern couples to an unbroken chain spanning two millennia. Sacred thread (sai sin) tied around wrists links hearts to Dharma and each other, the same thread that once connected Buddha to the Bodhi tree.

Regional Ceremony Traditions

Sri Lankan Poruwa Ceremony

Sri Lankan couples ascend the Poruwa, an elaborately decorated platform representing their future home. The ceremony unfolds in ancient choreography:

• Lighting of lamps: Mothers bring brass lamps lit from temple eternal flames, passing light through generations
• Ring exchange: Seven exchanges representing the seven factors of enlightenment
• Thread binding: Little fingers tied with blessed thread wrapped seven times, creating bonds meant for seven lifetimes
• Coconut breaking: Dramatic splitting symbolizes shattering obstacles to reveal sweet abundance within

Thai Water Blessing (Rod Nam Sang)

Thai weddings flow through the Rod Nam Sang ceremony, transforming couples into living shrines. Kneeling in traditional silk, they receive water blessed by nine monks at dawn. Elders pour sacred water from fingertips to wrists while offering whispered wisdom: “Flow around obstacles like water around stone.” The collected water later nurtures a tree planted for their union.

Regional Styles

Thai: Brides wear chut thai, silk where gold thread traces lotus patterns across jewel tones. Grooms complement in formal jackets mirroring temple architecture. Heirloom fabrics carry blessings of past marriages.

Tibetan: Rainbow-striped chubas capture sunset skies. Turquoise and coral balance energies. Traditional jewelry’s weight, sometimes twenty pounds, reminds couples of commitment’s beautiful burden.

Japanese: Zen aesthetics prevail. White shiromuku kimonos represent readiness to be “dyed” with new family colors. Elaborate uchikake display cranes (fidelity) and pines (longevity).

Sri Lankan: Kandyan brides wear twenty-five feet of silk in osariya sarees. Each jewelry piece tells stories, headpieces from ancient queens, necklaces with beads representing Buddhist virtues.

Sacred Colors

• White: New beginnings, pure intention
• Gold: Refined wisdom, incorruptible love
• Red: Life force, generational prosperity
• Saffron: Connection to monastic wisdom
• Blue: Deep as meditation, vast as compassion

Offerings to Buddha

Couples approach the shrine as spiritual equals, carrying offerings engaging every sense:

• Flowers: Already-fading jasmine teaches that even young love needs continual renewal
• Light: Two individual candles unite to light a third, individual practices supporting shared illumination
• Incense: Three sticks for Triple Gem and temporal dimensions, past, present, future
• Food: Finest portions teach giving best to spiritual life
• Water: Seven equally-filled bowls representing commitment to balance

Sacred Chanting

Ancient vibrations fill the air as monks chant blessings unchanged for two millennia:

Mangala Sutta enumerates thirty-eight conditions for fortunate life, offering practical guidance about choosing wise companions.

Metta Sutta wraps couples in expanding compassion circles, loving each other as part of universal kindness.

Protective verses create psychological armor, reminding couples their refuge lies in wisdom, not luck.

Sacred Thread Ceremony

The sai sin ceremony manifests invisible bonds through visible thread. White cotton blessed by months of chanting connects everyone present, couple to Buddha, to sangha, to each other, to cosmos itself.

The ceremony begins at the Buddha statue, with thread wound three times around the image’s hands. From there, it extends to the senior monk, who holds it while chanting. The thread then passes to each monk in turn, creating a living circuit of blessing.

But here’s where the ceremony transcends mere ritual: the thread continues beyond the monks to include every guest. Grandmothers grip it with arthritic fingers that remember their own wedding days. Children hold on with sticky hands, not understanding but sensing importance. Even skeptics find themselves moved as the thread connects them physically to everyone present.

When the thread finally reaches the couple, they’re not receiving individual blessings but communal support. The slight tension in the thread, held by dozens or hundreds of hands, creates a palpable sense of being held by community. Some couples report feeling actual warmth or tingling where the thread touches their skin.

At ceremony’s end, smaller pieces are cut and tied around the couple’s wrists. These aren’t removed but worn until they naturally fall off, sometimes months later, a prolonged reminder of this moment of perfect connection.

Promises Written on the Heart: Exchange of Vows

While traditional Buddhism didn’t include spoken vows, modern Buddhist couples often craft promises that blend ancient wisdom with personal commitment. These aren’t contractual obligations but aspirations, acknowledging that perfection is impossible while committing to continued effort:

“I vow to see you with fresh eyes each morning, remembering that you, like all things, are constantly changing, and to love who you are becoming, not just who you were.”

Contemporary Vows

Modern Buddhist couples often craft personalized vows reflecting dharma understanding:

“I promise to support your practice even when it takes you from me, knowing individual growth nourishes our shared life.”

“When anger arises, I vow to see it as passing weather, temporary and workable, unable to damage what is vast and clear.”

“I commit to patience as diligent as meditation, understanding love is not a destination but a path we walk.”

Dana: Beginning with Generosity

Marriage begins not with honeymoon departure but with dana, selfless giving that sets the tone for generous partnership.

Morning offerings: Newlyweds rise early to prepare monks’ meals, choosing service over comfort on their first married morning. The monks’ acceptance transforms exhaustion into merit.

Community feeding: Couples serve wedding feast remainders at orphanages and elderly homes, understanding joy becomes complete when shared with the joyless.

Liberation rituals: Some purchase entire stocks from bird sellers, spending honeymoon funds to grant freedom, each released creature carrying prayers for the couple’s own liberation.

Home Blessing

Monks consecrate the new home with moonlit water and chanting. The couple places:

• Buddha images anchoring spiritual centers
• Wedding thread creating sacred intimacy
• Bodhi seeds for enlightenment gardens
• Sutras in high corners for wisdom protection

This blessing renews annually, acknowledging sacred space requires maintenance.

Pilgrimage Honeymoons

Couples walk where Buddha walked, their love story intersecting with humanity’s greatest love story. At Bodh Gaya, they meditate on awakening to married life. At Sarnath, they explore balance. At Kushinagar, they face impermanence, vowing to cherish precisely because nothing lasts forever.

Interfaith Ceremonies

Buddhist-Christian weddings might flow from meditation to communion. Buddhist-Jewish ceremonies break both coconuts and glass. One couple created journey stations, meditation cushions to prayer candles to chuppah, physically traversing the spiritual landscape they’d navigate together.

Buddha’s skillful means supports adaptation. What matters isn’t rigid form but sincere intention to begin mindfully.

Environmental Consciousness

Zero-waste ceremonies use biodegradable decorations becoming compost. Wedding favors of tree saplings create forests of memory.

Mindful menus feature vegetarian feasts celebrating abundance without taking life. Each dish’s story, the grandmother’s recipe, the local farm, transforms eating into meditation.

Carbon-neutral celebrations choose local temples over destinations, seasonal flowers over imports, charitable donations over material gifts.

Digital Integration

Technology enhances sacred moments when handled skillfully:

• Live-streaming includes distant loved ones
• Custom meditation apps help non-Buddhist guests participate
• QR codes enable instant charitable giving

Yet boundaries remain essential, phone-free ceremonies with devices resting while hearts engage.

Theravada Traditions (Southeast Asia)

Thailand: Beyond water blessings, Khan Maak processions require grooms to pass wisdom gates. Sin sod (bride price) transforms from economic transaction to temple donation.

Sri Lanka: Nekath determines astrologically perfect moments, couples wait hours for exact ring-exchange seconds, practicing patience. Jayamangala verses celebrate victory over internal defilements.

Myanmar: Buddhist ceremonies blend with nat spirit worship. Gadaw prostrations before elders erase karmic debts and ego simultaneously.

Mahayana Traditions (East Asia)

China: Layers of Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist elements. An chuang bed-setting ceremonies transform marriage beds into altars. Numbers become prayers, 8 for prosperity, 9 for longevity.

Korea: Pyebaek ceremonies unfold in near-silence, dates and chestnuts exchanged representing generational cycles. Hanbok colors correspond to Buddhist elements.

Vietnam: Le an hoi engagements harmonize Buddha images with ancestor photos. Couples chant Amitabha’s name, promising mutual Pure Land support.

Japan: San-san-kudo sake ceremonies achieve profundity through restraint, three sips from three cups. Some begin with shared zazen meditation. Thousand origami cranes represent wishes taking flight.

Vajrayana Traditions (Himalayas)

Tibet: Three-day ceremonies with changphud requests, khata scarves piling like pure intention. Torma butter sculptures teach impermanence through destruction. Lungta flags carry merit on mountain winds.

Bhutan: Archery contests represent piercing illusion. Thangka paintings remind that marriage occurs within samsara but enables liberation.

Mongolia: Honoring Buddha and eternal blue sky, circling sacred cairns thrice. Silver headdresses create personal temples of sound.

Honoring the Ancestors: Parents’ Blessings

Buddhist weddings begin long before the ceremony, they begin with acknowledging the chain of cause and effect that created this moment. The formal blessing from parents isn’t mere permission but recognition of profound debt.

In the kramom ceremony of Cambodia, couples literally wash their parents’ feet, using water scented with jasmine and blessed by monks. Each drop of water represents a tear their parents shed raising them, now transformed into blessing. Parents’ weathered feet, which once paced floors with crying babies, now receive the tender ministration of those babies grown into adults ready for their own families.

The blessing flows both directions. Parents offer not just approval but transmission, of family recipes that will flavor the new home, of stories that will be retold to grandchildren, of silent knowledge about how to weather marriage’s storms. Some families pass physical objects: a grandmother’s mala worn smooth by decades of practice, a father’s meditation cushion shaped to his form, now ready to support another generation’s sitting.

The Sangha as Sacred Witness

In Buddhist understanding, the community doesn’t merely attend the wedding, they co-create it. Each witness adds their consciousness to the ceremonial field, their presence amplifying the couple’s vows like harmonics enriching a fundamental tone.

The sakshi (witnesses) in Indian Buddhist traditions sign their names not on legal documents but in books that will be kept on the family altar, their signatures becoming part of daily devotion. In some traditions, every guest brings a small stone to add to a cairn built during the ceremony, creating a physical monument to communal support.

Children play essential roles, not confined to corners but integrated as flower-scatterers, bell-ringers, thread-holders. Their presence reminds everyone that marriage creates future, that today’s union will ripple through generations. Elderly guests are seated prominently, their successful marriages serving as proof that lasting love is possible, their lined faces maps of the territory the young couple will traverse.

Merit’s Infinite Multiplication

The wedding’s merit, that invisible spiritual currency generated through generosity and virtue, is consciously directed outward in expanding circles:

For the Deceased: Empty chairs are sometimes placed for deceased relatives, their photos garlanded with flowers. The couple dedicates merit to these absent-present guests, understanding that death doesn’t sever connection. In Tibetan traditions, names of all deceased family members are read aloud, their consciousness invited to rejoice in this happiness.

For Future Generations: Unborn children receive blessings, the couple vowing to create conditions for wise and compassionate beings to take birth. Some couples plant bodhi trees that their children will meditate beneath, or commission Buddha statues that will watch over generations.

For All Sentient Beings: The dedication expands beyond human realm. The insects disturbed by wedding preparations, the flowers cut for decoration, the silkworms who died for wedding clothes, all are included in merit dedication. This isn’t mere sentiment but profound recognition that human happiness is built on countless other beings’ sacrifice.

The Compassionate Kitchen

Buddhist wedding feasts transform eating into ethical statement. The menu becomes a teaching on non-harm, with each dish demonstrating that celebration doesn’t require suffering.

Vegetarian Variations: Master chefs create “mock meat” dishes so convincing that guests must be assured no animals were harmed. Mushrooms become “abalone,” tofu transforms into “duck,” demonstrating that skillful means extends to cuisine. Each substitution teaches that satisfaction comes not from taking life but from creativity and care.

The Stories Food Tells: In mindful wedding feasts, dishes arrive with narratives. “This soup recipe survived three wars and two migrations, carried in grandmother’s memory across oceans.” “These vegetables grew in soil blessed by monks, watered with loving-kindness meditation.” Food becomes biography, history, practice.

Symbolic Ingredients:

• Lotus root: Its holes representing openness to experience
• Long noodles: Uncut for longevity
• Sweet rice balls: Family unity, each grain sticking together
• Pomegranates: Fertility of both body and mind
• Tea: Mindfulness in every sip

The Pause Before Plenty

Some Buddhist weddings include moments of formal mindfulness before feasting. Guests are invited to contemplate the food’s journey, the sun that grew it, rain that watered it, hands that harvested it. A bell rings, and for thirty seconds, hundreds of people sit with food before them, not eating but appreciating.

When consumption begins, it’s conscious. Conversations pause mid-chew as flavors are actually tasted. The wedding feast becomes group meditation on gratitude, impermanence (food disappearing bite by bite), and interconnection (shared meal creating shared experience).

Money as Water

In Asian Buddhist cultures, monetary gifts flow like water, meant to move, not stagnate. Red envelopes (ang pao, hong bao, or shugi-bukuro) contain bills so new they crack when folded, representing fresh starts.

The amounts follow numerological philosophy:

• 108: Sacred number of earthly temptations overcome
• 88: Double infinity in Chinese tradition
• Avoiding 4 (death) but embracing 9 (longevity)

These gifts often exceed wedding costs, but excess returns to circulation, donated to temples, used to help younger relatives marry, invested in community projects. Money becomes medium for merit, not accumulation.

Dharma as Dowry

Progressive Buddhist couples request spiritual rather than material gifts:

• Sponsorship of meditation retreats
• Donations to fund temple repairs
• Support for monks’ education
• Trees planted in forests
• Animals rescued from slaughter

Wedding registries might list “one month’s food for orphanage” alongside “meditation cushions for two.” Guests choose between funding the couple’s pilgrimage to Bodh Gaya or providing Buddhist texts for prison libraries.

The Gift of Presence

Some couples request no gifts except presence, full, undistracted attendance. Guests commit to participating wholly: joining group meditations, offering personal blessings, staying present rather than documenting. This gift of consciousness, offered by dozens or hundreds simultaneously, creates a field of awareness the couple can feel years later when remembering their wedding day.

The Lotus: Love Rising from Mud

No symbol captures Buddhist marriage philosophy quite like the lotus. Couples exchange lotus bouquets understanding the profound metaphor: their love, like the pristine flower, will rise from life’s mud, the arguments, disappointments, and difficulties that fertilize growth.

Different lotus colors convey specific blessings:

• White lotus: Mental purity, suggesting the cleansing of past relationship karma
• Red lotus: The heart’s blooming, compassion flowering between two people
• Blue lotus: Wisdom’s victory over ignorance, partners helping each other see clearly
• Pink lotus: The supreme lotus, representing the relationship’s potential for perfection
• Gold lotus: Total enlightenment, the aspiration that marriage itself becomes a path to awakening

Some couples incorporate lotus imagery throughout their wedding: lotus-shaped lights, lotus pond ceremonies, even lotus-flavored wedding cakes. Each representation reminds them that beauty requires both mud and sunshine, that purity emerges from rather than despite difficulty.

The Endless Knot: Infinite Interconnection

The shrivatsa or endless knot adorns wedding invitations, rings, and ceremonial cloths. This geometric pattern, with no beginning or end, teaches that the couple’s story neither started when they met nor will end when they die. They’re temporarily manifested nodes in an infinite web of relationships stretching back to the universe’s beginning and forward to its end.

Tibetan couples might spend hours contemplating the endless knot before their wedding, tracing its paths with their fingers, discovering how what seems like separation always reconnects. The symbol suggests that every argument will circle back to harmony, every departure leads to return, every ending becomes beginning.

During ceremonies, couples might literally tie endless knots with rope or ribbon, their four hands working together to create what neither could accomplish alone, a perfect metaphor for marriage itself.

The Dharma Wheel: Marriage as Practice

The eight-spoked Dharma wheel, prominently displayed at Buddhist weddings, transforms marriage into spiritual practice. Each spoke represents one aspect of the Eightfold Path that the couple commits to walking together.

The wheel reminds them that marriage isn’t a destination but a vehicle, something that moves, requires maintenance, and can carry them toward liberation. Some couples commission wheels with their wedding date inscribed on the hub, the spokes decorated with personal vows corresponding to each path aspect.

The wheel’s circular form also teaches about cycles, that marriages have seasons, that difficulty and ease alternate like spokes passing the ground, that forward movement requires accepting continuous change.

The Conch Shell: Proclaiming Sacred Union

When conch shells sound at Buddhist weddings, they announce more than just marriage, they proclaim the Dharma’s victory over ignorance, love’s triumph over loneliness, connection’s defeat of isolation.

The conch’s spiral perfectly demonstrates Buddhist philosophy, starting from a point and expanding outward in ever-widening circles, like love that begins between two people and radiates to encompass all beings. The shell’s white color represents purity of intention, while its deep sound vibrates in listeners’ chests, making the wedding announcement physical as well as auditory.

In some traditions, the couple drinks blessed water from a conch shell, literally ingesting blessings. The shell is then kept in their home, blown on anniversaries to remember and renew vows.

Beginning with Beginner’s Mind

Couples planning Buddhist weddings are encouraged to approach preparation with shoshin, beginner’s mind. Rather than becoming experts who know exactly what they want, they remain open to discovery. This might mean:

Sitting with uncertainty: Before making decisions, couples might meditate together on questions like “What is marriage?” or “Why do we want witnesses?” The answers that arise from stillness often surprise.

Consulting wisdom holders: Meeting with long-married couples, not for advice but for stories. Meeting with divorced Buddhists too, learning how relationships end skillfully. Meeting with monks who’ve renounced romantic love, understanding what they’ve gained and lost.

Practicing with obstacles: When vendor problems or family conflicts arise during planning, treating them as teaching. If they can’t handle wedding stress mindfully, how will they handle marriage stress?

The Sacred and the Practical

Buddhist weddings achieve their power through balancing transcendent meaning with earthly practicality:

Honor tradition while being authentic: A couple might follow their grandmother’s Buddhist traditions precisely for the ceremony, then have a reception that’s entirely their own. Or they might create entirely new rituals that express Buddhist principles in contemporary language.

Include everyone while maintaining integrity: When non-Buddhist guests attend, provide context without condescension. Perhaps beautiful cards explaining what’s happening and why. Maybe a pre-ceremony gathering where guests learn to meditate or tie blessing threads. The goal is inclusion without dilution.

Spend mindfully: Every wedding expense becomes opportunity for practice. Does this expense reflect our values? Will this create more happiness than donating the same amount? Some couples set aside matching amounts for charity for every wedding expense, doubling their practice of generosity.

Creating Inclusive Sacred Space

Modern Buddhist weddings increasingly welcome diversity:

Language bridges: Ceremonies might flow between languages, with key moments repeated in each. Rather than seeing translation as interruption, couples frame it as reminder that truth transcends words.

Ability accessibility: Ensuring elderly guests can participate fully, providing meditation chairs alongside cushions, offering visual and auditory alternatives for those with sensory differences. The sangha includes all beings.

Cultural fusion: When Buddhist traditions from different countries meet in marriage, rather than choosing one over another, couples might alternate, Thai water blessings followed by Japanese tea ceremony followed by Tibetan butter lamp lighting. The variety itself becomes teaching about Buddhism’s adaptability.

Buddhist weddings offer profound paradox: they celebrate something that doesn’t truly exist (a permanent, unchanging union) while acknowledging impermanence with every ritual. The flowers will wilt, the incense will burn to ash, the chanted words will fade to silence. Even the couple themselves are different people by ceremony’s end than when it began.

Yet within this acceptance of change lies the tradition’s deepest wisdom. Buddhist weddings don’t promise “happily ever after” but “mindfully ever present.” They don’t vow eternal love but committed practice. They don’t seek to stop time but to fully inhabit it.

When the last guest departs and ceremonial robes are folded away, what remains isn’t just two people with new rings but two practitioners with deepened understanding. They’ve learned that marriage, like meditation, requires showing up daily, starting fresh each morning, forgiving countless wanderings from intention.

The traditions explored here, from Sri Lankan thread-tying to Tibetan butter lamps, are ultimately fingers pointing at the moon. The ceremonies matter less than the consciousness they cultivate. A Buddhist wedding succeeds not when rituals are performed perfectly but when two people genuinely commit to awakening together, to seeing through each other’s eyes as well as their own, to transforming the ancient human dance of partnership into a path toward liberation.

In this light, every marriage becomes a teaching, every wedding a transmission of wisdom from past to future. The couple stands at the center of a mandala that includes their ancestors, their descendants, their community, and all sentient beings, promising to love not just each other but through each other to touch the infinite.

May their journey together lead to the liberation of all beings. May their love become a bridge others can cross toward awakening. May their union remind us that in connecting deeply with one person, we practice connecting with all existence.

Gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha (Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone completely beyond, awakening, so be it!)

May all beings be happy. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free from suffering. May all beings live with ease. May all couples walking the path together support each other’s journey toward liberation.

For more information about Buddhist wedding ceremonies, see the Buddhist Churches of America which provides guidance on Jodo Shinshu Buddhist wedding services and rituals.

Explore these related wedding traditions:

• Hindu Wedding Traditions
• Sikh Wedding Traditions
• Muslim Wedding Traditions
• Thai Wedding Traditions
• Japanese Wedding Traditions
• Chinese Wedding Traditions
• Sri Lankan Wedding Traditions
• Vietnamese Wedding Traditions