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Compère Lapin Party Game

Gumbo Zydeco Recipe Collecting

Je veux marier
Cajun Wedding Traditions

Louisiana Animals
Scavenger Hunt/Matching Game

Fais do dos and Dancehalls

Resource Links

Lapin Lapin Album Details

Lapin Lapin -
Cajun & Creole Children’s Program

Lesson 3
Je veux marier - Cajun Wedding Traditions

What do you think of when you hear the word “wedding”? Maybe you imagine a bejeweled bride in a long white gown and fluffy veil. Maybe you remember a portrait hanging on the wall at home. Maybe you think of walking down the aisle, throwing the bouquet, or cutting the towering cake. Think of the stories your mother has told you about her wedding. Were there mountains of food that friends and relatives lovingly prepared? Does she have a favorite story to tell about her wedding? What are the things that make weddings special?

Marriage and weddings are rites of passage, celebrations that are held to mark the time when a person reaches a new and important stage of life. Weddings are found in cultures all over the world. The way that this important life step is celebrated is different from culture to culture, from place to place, and even from person to person.

This article is about the unique wedding traditions of the Cajun people of southwest Louisiana. The Cajuns are people are descendants of French speaking Acadians who were exiled or forcefully removed from their homelands in Nova Scotia in1755. Other people of French background in southwest Louisiana also call themselves Cajun. Today, Cajun people still practice many of the traditions and customs of their ancestors and are surrounded by French language and culture.

Cajun Wedding Customs from the past:
The Cajun people of southwest Louisiana have many very old wedding traditions that people still do at weddings today.

These are the words to the first Cajun song ever recorded in 1928 by Joe and Cleoma Falcon. They tell the story of going to Lafayette to get married. Until the1930s, Louisiana roads and bridges were very poor and rural Cajun communities were isolated. Transportation in the country was still horse and buggy. Churches and courthouses were few and far between, so couples had to go to the big town of Lafayette to get their marriage license, or wait weeks for a circuit-riding priest to come to them. In the old days, a couple would “jump the broom” held by family and friends to make the marriage legal until the priest was able to come. Parents decided what young man was suitable for a daughter to marry. Older people tell stories of agreements between the parents about property, livestock and money. People who wanted to get married published news at the church, so that if someone objected, they could speak before the marriage took place. Though some of these customs of the past are not practiced anymore, they are mentioned in an old song that complains about getting married.

Today’s Cajun Wedding Customs
Cajuns celebrate a wedding with a dance or reception. In French, a wedding dance is called “La Bal de Noce”. Before public dancehalls became popular gathering places for Cajuns, the bal de noce was held at home, but now weddings are usually held at public halls. A very beautiful tradition that the Cajuns have is the wedding march. Before the Cajun band begins to play for everyone to dance, the dance floor is cleared. The bride and groom hold hands and walk slowly around the room while the band plays a special song just for this march. Then, the guests get a partner and join in the march until everyone is following the bride and groom. After the march, the bride and groom dance a waltz in the middle while everyone watches. Then they dance with their parents. After that, everybody can dance. To get a dance with the bride or groom, it is traditional to pin money on the bride’s veil or on the groom’s suit. This is an excellent way to make sure they have some money to start their life together.

Cajuns know how to have fun with each other, too. It is a custom that if a younger brother or sister marries before the older one, then the older one must dance with a mop or broom while everyone watches. In the little town of Mamou, they even have to dance in a tub of water with the mop. This is a way of poking fun at the older one for still being single. Another bit of fun is called charivari (sha-ree-va-rée). When the bride or groom has been widowed or divorced before, family and friends interrupt the wedding night by banging loud pots and pans outside their window. The company does not stop the noise until they are invited in for something to drink and eat. This is a playful way of honoring the new couple.

The food at Cajun weddings is usually homemade, prepared by the bride’s family for all the invited guests. A huge gumbo with fresh chicken and sausage in a spicy brown soup served over rice is traditional, along with sandwiches and other finger foods. There is a white wedding cake cut by the married couple, and a chocolate groom’s cake that is cut by the groom’s godfather or parrain

Shared Traditions
You know you are at a Cajun wedding when you see customs such as pinning money on the veil, the wedding march, gumbo, and charivari. But Cajuns share wedding traditions with other cultures, too: believing that the bride should wear “something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue”; the bride being walked down the aisle by her father; the groom not seeing the bride in her wedding gown or the day before the wedding; throwing the bouquet, removing the garter, sharing bites of cake and sips of wine, decorating cars with soap messages and tin can noise makers, throwing rice or bird seed at the couple to wish them a good send off.

Conclusion:
All wedding traditions or rituals mark the important step in life that the newly married couple is taking. They may be new or old. They many be unique to one culture or shared by many. But they are all done for a reason. They help to bond people and families together and celebrate this rite of passage.

Teachers may wish to “chunk” the article for different reading comprehension levels. Logical chunks are: historical traditions, contemporary traditions, shared traditions. A few lesson ideas are:

1. After reading, brainstorm a list of all the traditions mentioned in the article. Have students categorize the list into those they knew about and those that were new. Graph the results. Complete one “I learned” statement per student.

2. Have students act out the Cajun wedding march as described in the article to a slow Cajun recording (in 2/4).

3. Have students illustrate the progression of events at a wedding in comic strip form or with Paint and a group Power Point.

4. Have students interview their elders about family wedding traditions. Compare those traditions with other classmates and the traditions listed in the article.

5. As a cumulative writing activity, have students write a short essay addressing “What is a rite of passage?” Use what they know about wedding traditions as examples.

Used with permission from:
Louisiana Voices Folklife in Education Project

Resources

Book:
Post, Lauren.
Cajun Sketches from the Prairies of Southwest Louisiana. LSU Press, 1974.

Internet:
Louisiana Voices Unit IX Part 2 The Cycle of Life

Louisiana Voices Louisiana Folklife Bingo

Cajun wedding page

Internet Lesson Plan:
Rasband, Jennie.
Rituals and Rites of Passage. Grade Level: 5th-6th.