Dancing Siblings

     Dancing is a massive part of any traditional wedding, am I right? There's the bride's dance with her father, then the bride's dance with the groom, and so on. Let's also not forget that most wedding guests spend a great deal of the wedding celebrations they attend dancing away with their friends and families. It's easy to see that dancing is a common activity amongst weddings all over the world.

     For the Cajun people of Southwest Louisiana, however, dancing is not just a fun pastime, it's much more than that. Dancing plays into a whole lot of some of Cajun's oldest wedding traditions. During most traditional Cajun weddings, the older unmarried siblings of the bride have to dance with a broom in front of everybody at the wedding, mocking their single status by doing so. Older unmarried siblings also have to participate in a tradition called the 'Hog's Trough Dance'. This tradition requires the siblings to dance in an empty hog's trough until it breaks and is believed to bring good luck to the bride and groom.

     So remember, a dance may be quite the simple and enjoyable pastime to some, whereas to others it may be an embarrassing, mocking activity. In the end, however, it's safe to say that dancing really does play, in one way or another, into every wedding.

By Julia Dankov