Title: Father-Daughter Dance

General Information about Item:

• Customary Lore, Wedding Folklore
• Language: English
• Region of Origin: Unknown
• Informant: JM19
• Date Collected: 5-16-2019

Informant Data:

• JM19 is a 22 year old woman from Boston, MA. She attends Dartmouth College and is a member of the Class of 2019.  She intends to move to New York City after graduation and pursue a career in consulting.  She is the oldest of three children in her family.

Contextual Data:

• Cultural Context: JM19 has attended several weddings where this tradition has been practiced.  It is often seen at American weddings, but may be a tradition in different cultures as well.
• Social Context: This tradition is practiced at many American weddings.  Often, most everyone in attendance at the wedding watches the bride and her father dance.  After the dance, the groom cuts in or the bride is passed off to him.  It is a moment of bonding that the bride gets to share with her father before spending the rest of her life with her new husband.

Item (Direct Quote):

• “The few family weddings that I have been to have always included a slow father-daughter dance. I remember this being an intimate and tear jerking moment of the after-party where the father of the bride dances alone with his daughter on the dance floor. It is a symbolic moment in the wedding, where the father has a quiet moment with his daughter before she spends the rest of the evening with her husband.”

Collector’s Name: Natalie Knight

Tags/Keywords:

• Wedding Folklore
• American Lore
• Rites of Passage

Title: Army Saber

General Information about Item:

• Customary Lore, Wedding Folklore
• Language: English
• Region of Origin: United States
• Informant: Tim Gorman
• Date Collected: 5-16-2019

Informant Data:

• Tim Gorman is a 22 year old man from Los Angeles, California. He grew up in Bend, Oregon and then attended West Point, graduating in 2018.  He now serves as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Army and is stationed at Fort Carson in Colorado.

Contextual Data:

• Cultural Context: The best man slaps the bride on the rear with his army saber at as the couple leaves the wedding chapel.  This is customary at army weddings, at which all military dresses in formal uniform.  The sabers are a sort of long sword which are granted to officers in the army.
• Social Context: This folklore tradition is practiced at most traditional army weddings.  It serves as light-hearted moment at the end of a formal wedding ceremony.  It is a way of symbolically saying to the bride, “Welcome to the army.”  Most people who have formal army weddings are those who intend to stay in the army for quite a long time, so this is a signal to the bride that she is now being welcomed into the larger army family as well.

Item (Direct Quote):

• “At most military weddings, when the bride and groom exit the wedding chapel the groomsman create an arch with their sabers. Traditionally, the best man will be at the end of the arch line, and when the bride walks past him, he will slap her butt with his saber and say ‘Welcome to the Army.’ This tradition serves to integrate the bride not only with the family she will start with her husband, but with her husbands Army/unit family as well that will offer her support during the challenges and trials of being a military spouse.”

Collector’s Name: Natalie Knight

Tags/Keywords:

• Wedding Folklore
• American Lore
• Army Lore