wedding
Americannoun
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weddings
plural
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the anniversary of a marriage, or its celebration.
They invited guests to their silver wedding.
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the act or an instance of blending or joining, especially opposite or contrasting elements.
a perfect wedding of conservatism and liberalism.
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Business Slang. a merger.
adjective
noun
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the act of marrying or the celebration of a marriage
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( as modifier )
wedding day
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the anniversary of a marriage (in such combinations as silver wedding or diamond wedding )
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the combination or blending of two separate elements
Synonym Usage
See marriage.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of wedding
First recorded before 900; Middle English “matrimony, wedlock, marriage,” Old English weddung “betrothal”; see origin at wed, -ing 1
Explanation
A wedding is a celebration or ceremony of marriage. Besides being a formal way to mark the union of two people, weddings can be a lot of fun too. The earliest meaning of wedding was simply "the state of being married," but by the early 1400s it meant the ceremony or rite at the very beginning of a marriage. A wedding can be a simple civil ceremony at City Hall or an elaborate event that takes place over several days and involves religious rituals, food and drink, and hundreds of guests. As an adjective, wedding describes anything related to the ceremony, like wedding cakes and wedding dresses.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Currently, there are 370 seats available at maximum capacity—but that doesn’t include room for a dance floor, a critical component for a wedding or bar mitzvah.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 22, 2026
Yvonne Villarreal: And she went to the Taylor Swift wedding.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 20, 2026
As much as they enjoy betting on reality TV and Taylor Swift’s wedding, they also want help in saving, spending and investing their money.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 18, 2026
It also gives non-Asian chorus members a reason to be present at Butterfly’s wedding, though having a group of American ladies sing the invocation “O Kami! O Kami!” from song sheets seemed peculiar.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 17, 2026
For music, the entire chorus of The Nutcracker began to hum the wedding march.
From "Secrets at Sea" by Richard Peck
The new ballroom at his private golf club in Bedminster would be used by the club’s 550 members and their families for events such as weddings.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 22, 2026
In Las Vegas, the Electric Daisy Carnival has two chapels for weddings.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 14, 2026
Mala Wangzi has opened pop-up museums around the country, held more than 4,000 latiao-themed weddings for superfan couples, and sponsored e-sport events, music festivals, and animation conventions.
From Barron's ● Aug. 14, 2026
“We locked eyes, and we’ve been close friends ever since, danced at each other’s weddings, held each other’s babies,” says Winograde, speaking via videoconference from Rovner’s Encino home.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 11, 2026
Scarcely a man now alive had yet been bom when Malleon had compiled his dusty lists of weddings, births, and deaths.
From "A Game of Thrones" by George R.R. Martin
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
