So they have no fun in life at all. Understood.
I think that, in the US, in the eyes of the law what makes the wedding official is filling out the paperwork, but that part isn’t usually done in a church or scenic place with a bunch of guests watching. Most couples will do the paperwork in private, and then (usually) have the big ceremony of their choice with the guests (though of course, some choose to skip the big show).
Australia: the Wedding Celebrant is technically responsible for identifying the participants. As part of the process, the Celebrant is expected to have a pre-wedding meeting. Church ministers/priests automatically qualify as Celebrants, and also like to have pre-wedding meetings, and tend to prefer actual congregation members – partly for religious/cultural reasons, partly because of that whole identification/responsibility thing. N.Z. makes special provision for Friends/Quakers (who don’t have priests/ministers), and I assume the same in Aus, but I haven’t looked. Witnesses need to observe the declaration, and sign the paperwork, but AFAIK they are only witnessing the declaration and signing for it – no other responsibilities.
Weddings always end with signing the documents. Sometimes chairs are provided for convenience when signing the documents. A really quick civil wedding takes about 2 minutes, and at that speed you won’t get much chance to sit down.
Here in vic.aus, the Victorian Marriage Registry (of the Department of Births, Deaths and Marriages) claims to be the largest provider of wedding ceremonies in Victoria. They’ve got half-a-dozen Celebrants on staff, and can do a wedding in 15 minutes (you, them, and your two witnesses), or you can have a larger room and a longer ceremony. I don’t think that they worry about prior meetings: bigamy isn’t really that common, and perhaps they depend on their employer to protect them.
The Victoria Mariage Registry will allow a certain amount of customization on a longer booking – all they really care about is getting you in and out in the allotted time, while ensuring that the legal requirements are being satisfied, and that you understand that certification is a serious legal responsibility – and you could do the whole thing sitting down if you wanted to, but culturally, photographs are done while standing, and civil ceremonies are organized around that understanding.
That’s what happens in Japan. The legal part is just the paperwork which is filed with the appropriate government office. They record it and provide a certificate of acceptance.
Couples can have ceremonies, which traditionally were Shinto but due to Western influence, it became popular for Christen style weddings with pseudo priests. This was good part time gig for somber looking middle aged Western men.
People have been using the term “priest” for the person officiating the marriage. In the U.S., about twice as many people who call themselves Christian use the term “minister” for the person who is the clergyman (or clrergywoman) at a church as use the term “priest”. Generally only Catholics and Episcopalians use the term “priest”. Note that an Episcopalian (which is called Anglican in some other countries) clergyman (or clergywoman) can be a married person.
You need to have a civil wedding in the US, too, it’s just that that can be done by a member of the clergy who simultaneously conducts a religious wedding. In my state, most clergy and any justice of the peace can conduct a civil wedding, and almost anyone can get a license for a single wedding. But the state imposes certain constraints.
The length of US weddings varies a lot. If it’s just a civil wedding it’s usually pretty quick. Jewish and Catholic weddings can take a long time. I went to an Indian wedding that took all day. (And that was the abbreviated version, because they were in the US. They told me it would have been three days in India.)
A friend had to stand through her lengthy Catholic wedding in a hot church in a big wedding gown, and literally passed out partway through.
The Indian couple sat for much of the proceedings, but also walked around in circles, scattered flowers, and did a bunch of other stuff.
Anyway, I’d say there’s no one norm.
In this kind of weddings I have seen people quietly sneaking out to their cars and whisky or other drink bottles and come back in a very good mood. Drink, smile, repeat.
That’s how I’ve always understood it. AIUI, the marriage license paperwork is for the government to say “From the perspective of our laws, we don’t mind those two people getting married”, but once the government has given that OK, it is happy for some religious denomination to conduct the actual ceremony. Germany has split this up into separate civil (i.e., for the government) and religious ceremonies, but the basic idea is similar.
This also has a bearing on how fancy the ceremonies get. People who have a religious wedding will typically make that the main event with celebrations and lots of guests, while the civil wedding will be more modest with only close family attending. People who don’t want a religious wedding will, OTOH, have to make the civil one the big one with all the hurrah. This is also the reason why “Standesamt” offices in West Germany tend to be much more modest and bureaucratic-looking, whereas they are often much more grand in East Germany, which is predominantly atheist.
One of my cousins got married in what I guess you’d call a civil ceremony, since the officiant was not affiliated with a religion, and neither was the venue. The officiant, did, nonetheless, give a too-long, very boring, and heard-it-all-before homily on love and marriage. Everyone, excluding the officiant sat for this. My cousin and his brand new wife both sat.
Not really sure what the purpose of the homily was, unless it was something he did at every wedding, but thank goodness we were all sitting. My grandmother caught a nap.
I recall some discussion of places like Israel which are the polar opposite, meaning there is no civil marriage (some Ottoman thing— it was not completely clear to me whether civil officials are legally barred from registering marriages). The conclusion seems to be that atheists (and perhaps same-sex couples) cannot get married.
I believe Israel recognizes other countries’ marriages. So a lot of Israelis get married in foreign embassies or in Cyprus, and other nearby places.
Not just atheists and same sex couples - Israel doesn’t allow interfaith marriages, even if the religion(s) do. So a lot of people get married in other countries - at one point Israel recognized Zoom weddings conducted through Utah, although I don’t know if Utah still does Zoom weddings.
About Israel, I found this link, which confirms what both of you said: no civil marriage, however “personal status certificates issued abroad should generally be accepted according to international law principles, especially for couples married abroad in a civil ceremony”, including atheists, mixed-faith couples, and same-sex couples. They just cannot get married in Israel.
That site claims that double-proxy marriages used not to be recognized, but someone appealed that and now they are, the key being that the Zoom wedding or whatever would have to be valid in Utah and they get documents proving they are legally married there. They mention El Salvador as another option, also Kansas and Paraguay for a single-proxy marriage.
That’s why I got married in New York. Israel only recognizes Orthodox rabbis, and I grew up in a Conservative community, so we had a nice big Conservative wedding in Israel, and a few weeks later on our honeymoon we went to a clerk and made it official.
Since then, they’ve found another workaround, which is how things usually work here. Israel has a concept of “common-law marriage”, where the Supreme Court has ruled that people who live as husband and wife (or husband and husband, or wife and wife) and share a household have basically the same legal rights as a married couple, in terms of taxes, property, inheritance and so on. Lots of couples even get a lawyer and sign a couples’ property-sharing contract, just so there won’t be any doubts.
Getting to the other end of the wedding, the part about “untill death do us part”, (or as they say in German: bis dass der Tod uns scheidet, literally: until death divorces us) I just saw this ad in the street close to where I live. It is about a funeral home called Schuster, and the picture made me curious:
Do you think that picture represents an eagle or a vulture?
If an eagle: what symbolism is intended?
If a vulture: Is it in your opinion appropiate?
Perhaps @Tamerlane recognizes the silhouette?
I think it looks more like an eagle. And a vulture indeed would be untasteful. As for symbolism, maybe the eagle represents the soul flying towards whatever us awaits after death?
Huh. I was thinking definitely eagle, maybe a variation on the Brandenburger Adler.
That’s exactly my response.
Too stylized to say really, but I’m going to have to go with some sort of eagle. The long narrow wings with discrete wingtips could match either, but a funeral home celebrating a vulture seems…unlikely. I’d find it hilarious, but I suspect many customers would not 
.
Thanks for your expert opinion, Tamerlane. Well, maybe I have a weird imagination. Seems ambiguous enough for me to find if noteworthy. It would be hilarious, but not good for business, I imagine.