Tag Archives: wedding

Filipino Wedding Cord

Age: 35
Occupation: Nurse
Residence: Yorba Linda, CA
Language: English

Text

“When I got married, I included the Filipino wedding cord ritual. Not everyone at the wedding had heard of it, so I made sure we included a note in the program and had the officiant explain it too. It’s one of the traditional wedding customs in Filipino Catholic ceremonies, along with the veil and coins rituals.

The cord, or yugal, is typically a large decorative loop; it is usually made of silk or a rosary and shaped into a figure eight. This shape symbolizes infinity, endless love, and commitment. During the ceremony, two people called cord sponsors, who are usually a married couple chosen by the bride and groom, to drape the cord over the couple’s shoulders. 

One loop goes around the groom and the other around the bride. Then it rests gently across both of us, physically connecting us.

This is done after the vows and rings. It’s used to represent unity and the idea from that moment forward, we’re bound together not just legally or emotionally but also spiritually and communally too. 

In traditional Filipino culture, marriage isn’t just about the two people. It is also about the families, community, and even the ancestors who came before. The yugal is a visual symbol of that commitment. It says: we’re in this together, and we’re surrounded by support.”

Context

This narrative was shared by a Filipino American woman based in Southern California who recently got married and chose to include the yugal (wedding cord) ritual as a part of he wedding ceremony. The informant is second-generation, with her parents who immigrated from the Philippines. She explains that while she grew up seeing photos and hearing about traditional Filipino Catholic wedding customs, this was her first time directly participating in the ritual. She saw it as a meaningful way to connect with her cultural heritage and to educate non-Filipino guests attending her wedding.

She chose to have the officiant explain the ritual aloud during the ceremony and also included a brief description in the wedding program, since many guests were unfamiliar with Filipino customs. Her interpretation of the ritual highlights the spiritual, communal, and intergenerational dimensions of Filipino marriage traditions. To her, the yugal represents more than a decorative act. It visually affirms the idea that marriage is a bond supported by family, faith, and history.

My interpretation

The Filipino wedding cord ritual, also known as the yugal, is a traditional practice commonly performed during Filipino Catholic weddings. It is one of three primary unity rituals, alongside the veil and coin ceremonies, that serve as material and symbolic expressions of marriage as a sacred, communal, and culturally grounded institution. 

The yugal ritual is best understood as a life-cycle ritual and a form of performative tradition. It marks a moment of transition in the couple’s identity, not only as individuals becoming legally married, but as members of a broader cultural and familial system. Rituals like these are symbolically special acts that represent continuity with the past while actively shaping present social identity. In this way, the wedding cord ritual is not just decorative since it functions as a symbolic performance of cultural values, particularly those around unity, family, commitment, and faith.

The yugal also demonstrates the vernacular dimensions of religion. While it is part of Catholic wedding ceremonies, it is not a universal church practice and is instead deeply embedded in Filipino cultural contexts. It shows how religious expression can be shaped by folk practices passed down through community knowledge, rather than dictated by official religious institutions. This aligns with folklorist definitions of vernacular religion, which is a lived religious experience expressed through tradition, objects, and ritual enacted by ordinary people.

The cord ritual is also an example of intangible cultural heritage (ICH,) which is a form of tradition that is not a fixed artifact but a recurring, dynamic practice. Its meaning is carried through action, symbolism, and intergenerational participation rather than text or formal canon. However, as it becomes more frequently included in diasporic weddings (in this case, a Filipino American wedding), it also raises questions about heritage vs folklore. When the ritual is scripted into programs or explained to unfamiliar audiences, it edges closer to heritagization.

“Sukob” – Filipino Wedding Superstition

Nationality: Filipino
Age: 51
Occupation: Software Engineer
Residence: Naperville, IL
Language: English

Text:

Sukob is the belief that siblings should not have their weddings within the same calendar year. It’s also believed that the older sibling should get married first.

Context:

The performer grew up in the Philippines with many siblings who were born at similar times as one another. He has also been married and made sure to not to have his marriage within the same time as his siblings. His marriage has been going strong for 30 years so far.

“So it’s not competing with progress or prosperity and benefits or well-wishes. It’s like a known information like everybody knows it. Especially if you and your siblings are in the same age range, they will normally check first who is older and work with the other siblings for the dates. For example, Tito A got engaged the same year but Tito A gave way to Tito R and waited another year to get married. It’s a practicality thing. It’s also the superstition that the benefits will compete for the rest of your marriage.”

Analysis:

Filipinos are extremely superstitious with many believing that life events carry energetic, or spiritual, weight. To ensure a strong, hormonious, and propserous foundation for their lives, they must set themselves up well for life events. Apart from birth and death, marriage is the only other universal life event that is celebrated cross-culturally, putting a lot of weight on how the event occurs and how important it is in one’s life. Marriage, in particular, holds profound cultural significance as one of the few universal rites of passage celebrated across societies and is treated with a lot of intention. In Filipino culture, where family unity and respect are paramount, avoiding the overlap of weddings within the same family is seen not only as a way to prevent misfortune, but also as a gesture of deference. It ensures that each family member’s major life moment is honored without being overshadowed.

Additionally, “Sukob” superstition has risen in popularity due to the Filipino horror film Sukob which features a couple breaking this rule and the terrifying, dramaticized “karma” that ensued. Cementing a negative perception of Sukob in pop culture has lead to amplified anxieties around violating traditonal norms. Filipinos are especially superstitious due to many of them adhering to Cathiolisism. In a predominantly Catholic society where religious doctrine and folk beliefs often intertwine, the combination of spiritual caution and cinematic storytelling has reinforced the fear and observance of Sukob.

A Cameroonian Union

Nationality: American/Cameroonian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Arlington, Virginia
Language: English

TEXT: “When my cousin proposed to his now-wife, he had to follow a tradition that’s been in my family for generations. He needed to buy his bride’s family gift as a sort of bride price, a sort of toll he needed to pay before marrying her. The tradition comes from my Cameroonian culture. I remember the room filling with laughter, negotiations, and happiness, which marked the beginning of a lifelong connection.”

CONTEXT: This ritual was shared by the informant, F, during a conversation about wedding customs in different cultures. F talked about a marriage tradition from his Cameroonian background, where the groom must give gifts to the bride’s family before the wedding. He described attending his cousin’s bride price ceremony, where everyone laughed, talked, and celebrated together. F emphasized how important this step was in connecting the two families and honoring long-standing customs.

ANALYSIS: This is a good example of a cultural tradition that happens during big life events like marriage. In Cameroonian culture, the groom gives gifts to the bride’s family, which shows respect and seriousness about the marriage. It’s not just about the couple but about bringing two families together. Even though times have changed, people like F’s cousin still follow this tradition, which helps keep their culture alive. For F, it was more than just a party—it was a special moment that showed how important family and tradition are.

Story About a Priest at a Wedding Party

Nationality: Irish

Occupation: Horse Race Track Manager

Residence: Waterford, Ireland

Language: English

Text:

Back in the day Murphy got married, but he hardly remembers it because of how much he had to drink, oh far far too much. At one point during the ceremony the priest came over to him and said “Murphy you are drunk” and Murphy said “how do you know father?” and the priest said “Because you are lying on the floor”. Murphy looked up at the priest and said “that may be true, but the best man is drunker than me” and the priest says “don’t you mean ‘drunker than I’?” and Murphy says “no father, nobody is drunker than you”.

Context:

When my aunt told me this story, she acted like it happened at a wedding that she went to as a child growing up in Dublin; only when I pressed further did she admit it was a story she heard, not one she observed. It is unclear if there was a specific wedding that this actually happened at, but the story had been passed down from her mother, and her friends had heard similar stories elsewhere. When I pressed more, she said that one of her friends heard that story but said it happened in Kerry (in the West of Ireland), and if the story took place there that would feed into stereotypes Irish people have about Kerry.

Analysis:

The way that my aunt acted like this story had happened at a wedding she went to reveals a lot about Irish communities. The idea of a priest being drunk at a wedding is funny, but the story works as a joke because it isn’t completely unreasonable. In many parts of Ireland (less so in Dublin, which is how I knew the story wasn’t a true experience of hers), the priest is a major part of the town’s social network, where he would know everyone and be at any major event like a wedding. However, a priest would also be willing to join in the celebration, which opposes their day to day holy life. Many people in rural Ireland have experienced priests acting in a very normal way outside of their holy work, but this is generally not talked about; this joke is a way of bringing up how priests are human just like everyone else.

Sudani Tradition: On Weddings

Context:

G is a 20 years old Animation and Digital Arts major from Birmingham, UK. Members of his family immigrated to Birmingham from Sudan. He is a junior at USC and has been living in the area for 3 years.

Text:

Please excuse any grammar issues, these are direct text message quotes. 

G: “at a Sudani wedding the bride and the groom spit milk at each other that is presented by the matriarch of both families”

Interviewer: “by any chance do you know background on that?”

G: “for the life of me i can’t remember why but i do know that whoever spits first is the person who is supposedly ‘in charge in the relationship’ […] and it’s for like commitment to one another ”

Interpretation:

G’s anecdote references something we’ve discussed a number of times in class – wedding traditions. To me, the significance here draws clearly on a number of common themes in folklore. For one thing, milk is white – associated with purity like many things at a wedding. What’s more, its role in nature and the human life cycle associate it with health and growth. Sudan is patriarchal in its gender roles, so I feel that this meaning is emphasized by the fact that it is the matriarch (mother figure) of each family that gives the bride or groom the milk. This is an apparent reference again to life cycle and growing out of youth. Like G said, spitting it first shows commitment and authority, though the internet mentions prosperity as well. In general, it seems this tradition is one done for luck at a major life moment, a frequent folkloric concept.