Wedding ceremonies around the world offer a colorful lens through which to view a country and its people.In Bulgaria, despite its many years as a communist regime in which religion was not tolerated, Muslims hold festive winter marriage cermonies. n India, Jordan, Japan, and China , to name a few, some marriage cermonies are held as mass events in order to reduce costs. Some ceremonies aim for the extremes — even underwater — while others gracefully carry on a tradition despite years of violence. And while some fight for their right to marry, others have achieved it after years of stuggle.
1. A Bulgarian Muslim bride from the Pomak ethnic group, attended to during her wedding ceremony in the village of Draginovo, 100 kms southeast of Sofia. October 30, 2009. (Nikolay Doychinov - AFP/Getty Images)
2. Afghan bride Zahara, 24, gets ready for a wedding ceremony surrounded by female family members at a local beauty parlor in Bamiyan, Afghanistan. Oct. 14, 2010. (Paula Bronstein - AFP/Getty Images)
3. The world's tallest man Bao Xishun (2nd-R) and his bride Xia Shujuan (wearing a red veil) take part in a traditional Mongolian wedding ceremony at the Genghis Khans Mausoleum Tourist District on the outskirt of Erdos city of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China. July 12, 2007 (Guang Niu - AFP/Getty Images)
4.A Chinese man gets a "Yes, I do" for his marriage proposal underwater at an aquarium in Hefei, east China's Anhui province. Jan. 21, 2010. (STR/China Out - AFP/Getty Images)
5. A Lebanese woman removes dust from a wedding dress outside her partially destroyed shop in southern suburb of Beirut. Much of the southern suburb and south Lebanon lay in ruins after Israel's offensive against Hezbollah fighters. Aug. 28, 2006. (Anwar Amro - AFP/Getty Images)
6. The Duchess of Cambridge's wedding dress, designed by Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen, before it went on display at Buckingham Palace in London, England. July 20, 2011 (Lewis Whyld/WPA Pool - AFP/Getty Images)
7. A bridesmaid adds a final touches to the make up of Bulgarian Pomak bride some 230 km south of the capital Sofia. Nov. 19, 2006. (Valentina Petrova - AFP/Getty Images)
8.A photograph of the wedding of a U.S. soldier from Ghostrider Company 3rd Squadron 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment sits affixed to the inside of his helmet. March 24, 2008. (David Furst - AFP/Getty Images)
9. Household items, to be gifted to newly-wedded Muslim couples, are seen in a holding area during a mass wedding in Ahmedabad. March 21, 2010. (Sam Panthaky - AFP/Getty Images)
10. Couples prepare for a collective wedding ceremony at the 11th Asia Wedding Cultural Festival in Chengdu of Sichuan Province, China. Nov. 18, 2006. (China Photos - AFP/Getty Images)
11. Jordanian brides wearing full-face veils wait for their mass wedding ceremony to begin at a school in Amman. July 23, 1999. (Jamal Nasrallah - AFP/Getty Images)
12. Young men and women with torches participate in the wedding procession a night before a traditional "Galicnik wedding" in the western Macedonian village Galicnik, some 150kms southwest of Skopje. July 10, 2010. (Robert Atanasovski - AFP/Getty Images)
13. An Indian Muslim bride smiles as other brides pose with their hands adorned with henna art before the start of a mass wedding in Ahmedabad. March 21, 2010. (Sam Panthaky - AFP/Getty Images)
14. A Sri Lankan traditional Kandyan dancer adjusts his ornamental headdress ahead of a lavish wedding party in Colombo. Weddings are an elaborate affair in this nation of 20 million people, with many parents beginning to save money for the event from their child's birth. July 14, 2008. (Ishara S. Kodikara - AFP/Getty Images)
15. Ten couples who postponed their wedding ceremony because of the March 11 twin quake and tsunami disasters hold a joint wedding ceremony in Kamaishi in Iwate. July 3, 2011. (STR/JIJI Press - AFP/Getty Images)
16. Ray Durand (L) and his partner Dale Shields (R) kiss while having their picture taken after their wedding ceremony at Manhattan's City Clerk's Office in New York. On June 24 New York became the sixth U.S. state to allow same-sex marriages. July 24, 2011. (David Hanschuh - AFP/Getty Images)
17. A same sex couple cut a cake during a mass "wedding" party event in Taipei. About 80 lesbian couples tied the knot in Taiwan's biggest same-sex wedding party in the hope that the island will soon follow New York to legalize gay marriage. August 21, 2011. (Sam Yeh - AFP/Getty Images)
18. South African President Jacob Zuma (L) sings and dances with his newlywed Tobeka Madiba (R) at their wedding ceremony in a colorful Zulu traditional wedding outfit at Zuma's rural homestead of Nkandla, some 400 kilometres north of Durban. Jan. 4, 2010. (Rajesh Jantilal - AFP/Getty Images)
19. Relatives of 19-year-old Rachel Wassertog (C) escort her to her wedding with 19-year-old Aharon Noah Alter, the grandson of Rabbi Yaakov Ari Alter, the leader of the Gur Hassidic sect in Jerusalem, Israel. Feb 27, 2007. (Uriel Sinai - AFP/Getty Images)
20. A Groom (L) and best man (R) walks with their faces smeared and necks locked, on their way to pick up the bride during a wedding ceremony of Hui Ethnic group in Xian of Shaanxi Province, China. During the wedding ceremony, friends and relatives will trick the groom and groomsman, by smearing their faces with shoeshine, and locking their necks with chains which represents "the groom to be chained by the marriage". July 2, 2006. (China Photos - AFP/Getty Images)
21. American Peter Gelling and his wife Retno Pratiwi beside their decorated rickshaw after their traditional Indonesian wedding in Jakarta, Indonesian. Aug. 2011. (Peter Gelling - Courtesy)
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