Customs and traditions

Birth
When mother and child arrive home from the hospital, relatives and friends will visit them. English women often give babies presents before their birth at a party called a Baby Shower. The Czech custom is that the husband gives the wife a present after the child is born. It´s very common for the husband to be with his wife in the delivery room and experience the blessed event.

Birthdays and Namedays
Children´s birthdays are celebrated. There is always a cake with candles and the birthday child gets presents. Adults also have parties and celebrations, but in the States, friends and relatives throw party´s for the birthday person. They don´t have namedays in the USA.

Weddings
Americans don´t eat, drink, sing, or dance as much as Czechs do at weddings. They wear the same clothing as we do. American women never rent a wedding gown. It is traditional for the bride to wear something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue. The groom often rents his tuxedo. They have a maid of honour and a best man too. They don´t break plates at the restaurants and the groom doesn´t carry the bride inside. He carries her across the treshold of their home for the first time as husband and wife and the best man makes the first toast.
Wedding receptions in the USA usually last four or five hours. Other wedding customs include: cutting the cake, throwing the garter and the bouquet of flowers, and decorating the new couples car. First, the bride sits down and the groom lifts up her skirt while the band play striptease music. Then the groom takes off her garter and he tosses the garter over his shoulder towards all the bachelors, who try to catch it. Whoever catches the garter will be the next one to get married. The bride throws her bouquet and whoever catches it sits down and the garter catcher lifts her skirt and puts the garter on her leg. The higher he places it, the better the marriage will be. Americans usually decorate the car with shaving cream and tie cans on the back bumper so that they drag behind the car and make lots of noise. They don´t put a dol on the front of the car. Death
American and British people don´t have a special day during the year when they visit their relatives´ and friends´ graves. They wear black only on the day of the funeral. When a person dies family and friends meet at a funeral parlor to pray and take one last look at the deceased. This is called a wake and usually lasts two or three days.

The funeral takes place one day after the wake. More people are choosing cremation, but the majrity prefer burials. After the ceremony family and close friends meet for a light meal.