The wedding cake is an essential part of any wedding ceremony. The first bites of the cake by bride and groom is also believed to be the first meal between husband and wife.

With an increasing demand for wedding cakes for the huge number of wedding receptions held everyday, Weena Sucharitkul started her “Sweet Art Centre” 12 years ago, offering made to order wedding cakes and show cakes for rent.

Sweet Art Centre claims itself to be the pioneer and only wedding cake decorator in Thailand. Its designers can artistically create a cake which seems to have leapt out of the customers’ imagination.

“This couple, they met each other in Germany. Their love story begins at this German castle. So we designed the wedding cake from the picture of the castle they showed us.”, said Weena.

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Fred’s Thai Bride returns to Coronation Street on Monday January 30. After rushing Ashley to hospital with a cut finger, Fred is stunned to see Stacy, played by Casey-Lee Jolleys, being brought in on a stretcher.  It appears she's been badly beaten, but nothing is ever as it seems with his former 'Thai bride' – who, if you remember, worked on the market and tried to scam Fred. Anyway, Fred makes a few discreet enquiries and returns to the hospital to check up on Stacy who explains the assault was the result of a scam gone wrong.  Although Fred keeps Ashley in the dark about Stacy's reappearance, he does tell Rita. And later that week, Rita is persuaded to give the young woman a safe haven from her violent ex. Aha… now that explains Rita’s shop attack.

Want your wedding to be a simple affair, barefoot on the beach? Then step it up a notch and invest in Montage Laguna Beach's Ultimate Beach Wedding package. The customizable weekend includes a day at the spa for the bride and her bridal party, a golf outing and cigar/cognac tasting for the groomsmen, as well as a welcome reception and rehearsal dinner in the couple's choice of indoor or outdoor venue. On the big day, the bride and her bridal party will receive hair and makeup styling before the ceremony on the resort's manicured lawns, which overlook the sea. The reception includes dinner, dancing and a midnight buffet in the ballroom. On Sunday, a post-wedding brunch is followed by a couples' massage and portrait session on the beach.

Just eight years ago, Sunil Pant wondered whether there was anyone else in this Himalayan land like him. To his engineer's mind, it was a riddle to be solved, and he methodically set about doing so.

Pant planted himself in Katmandu's biggest park and handed out free condoms, seeking to help curb the rising incidence of sexually transmitted diseases. At the same time, through subtle conversations, he teased out an answer to his ulterior question: Were there other gays and lesbians out there?
Not only was the answer an emphatic yes, but from the ad hoc beginnings sprang what is the most successful gay rights movement in South Asia.

In less than a decade, Pant's Blue Diamond Society has scaled massive heights in a nation known mostly as the home of Mt. Everest. Despite deep-seated social conservatism, the group has won a landmark Supreme Court anti-discrimination ruling, chalked up support for gay rights from two of the biggest political parties and garnered international accolades.

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America's betrothed are increasingly wooed by made-to-measure weddings, in which arrangements are handled by professionals and couples often tie the knot in exotic destinations.

Fairytale settings and all-inclusive packages are the drivers in this new trend. Out of some 2.2 million weddings registered in the country annually, 16 percent are organized outside the regions where the couples live.

The number represents a four-fold increase over the past 10 years, according to Brides Magazine.

"Disney is a very popular place to get married, but other places are also very active: the Caribbean, Hawaii and Las Vegas, of course, are very pro-active with numerous theme resorts," Millie Martini-Bratten, editor-in-chief of Brides Magazine, told AFP.

The Jamaican hotel chain Sandals is now specializing in weddings and honeymoon trips. About 40 percent of revenues generated by about a dozen hotels of the chain, which usually offer package deals, stem from events related to marriages, said Sandals spokesperson Caitlin Austin.

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A national helpline for forced marriage and "honour" crime victims was launched Friday, backed by the government which is worried about the scale of the South Asia-linked problem.

The Honour Network, run by the Karma Nirvana charity, is staffed by people with experience in such crimes, as well as with intimidation and abuse. The helpline offers emotional and practical support.

The government, through its Forced Marriage Unit (FMU), contributed 15,000 pounds to the start-up costs.

Forced marriages -- as distinct from mutually-accepted arranged marriages -- have led to suicides and murders, often called "honour killings," of South Asians in Britain, shocking a nation widely deemed to have successfully absorbed immigrant communities and customs.

In the last census, conducted in 2001, 2.3 million people out of 58.8 million classed themselves as Asian or Asian British.

Established in 2005, the FMU receives around 5,000 calls and deals with about 300 cases each year -- figures that officials fear are merely the tip of the iceberg.

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  Africa is a home for diverse culture and customs. Marriages are very special occasions in Africa and are marked with elaborate ceremony and occasion. Young African girls are taught from very early age the necessity of having a family and the duties of a married woman. African Weddings are meant to be very colorful and lively. One important tradition of African Wedding is to understand the importance of 'Family'. Here marriage unifies two families or two tribes into one particular family unit. Different parts of Africa follow different traditions. Some unique traditions of African Wedding can be seen in Ankole Wedding tradition, Pygmie wedding tradition, Nile Wedding tradition, Congo wedding tradition, and Zambian wedding traditions. In Sudan and other parts of river Nile it is a ritual for a groom to pay his bride's family a herd of cattle or sheep for the loss of their daughter's labor in support of their family. In Somalia the girl gets engaged to a boy at a very early age and usually any man can marry up to four times if he is financially secure. Bright festive color, songs, dance, music are common in any African wedding. Traditionally it is believed in Africa that a girl should be married off at a very early age as soon as she attains physical adulthood. In many African countries girls are taught since childhood the secret code and language required to communicate with other married woman without revealing the fact in front of their husbands. In Kenya it is a norm that after the "real" wedding the bride is shown in public, with a so-called, kupamba. This ceremony always takes place in the evening. It marks the passage for a young bride to enter in to a married woman's world. In Egypt young girls are married off at an early age. Wedding ceremonies Are organized in front of a witness and brideprice is settled down. When everything is agreed upon the first chapter of Koran is read out. On the day the wedding has been fixed for, the groom usually goes with some friends to the bride's home and pay some of the brideprice they have agreed on. The real wedding takes place in front of two witnesses who must be Muslims. The groom accepts the bride and promise to take care of her give her protection. A couple of days after the ceremony the groom welcome his bride to his home and all their friends and relatives are invited too to come and congratulate and bestow them with their blessings. The old tribal traditions are fading and the tribes are more likely to live after the Western rules of society and are influenced by western culture and wedding style. Now generally Africans follow western style wedding ceremonies and organize for a reception party where all family members and friends dance, sing, enjoy and makes merry.

Bound by "watta satta," a cultural tradition of exchanged marriage between two families, Nuzhat (not her real name), 22, cannot disclose her H.I.V. status.

"I know well what will happen I'll be thrown out of my husband's home and my own family will never accept me either. It will also mean my brother's home will be ruined. His wife is my husband's sister and she, too, will be sent packing. In any case, where will I go?" she asked in Karachi, provincial capital of Sindh province in southeastern Pakistan.

The tradition of watta satta, which literally means "give and take," or "throwing a stone and receiving something back," describes the exchange of brides between families, in which a brother and sister from one family are married to a pair from another family, often close relatives.

About a third of all marriages in rural Pakistan take place on a watta satta basis, according to research. In some parts of the country, like Sindh province, the rate is even higher.

Nuzhat is a classic case of the feminization of H.I.V. and AIDS that seems to have taken a toll on younger women in the Asia-Pacific region, where the epidemic is being fueled primarily by the gender inequality that prevails.

Health experts estimate there are 85,000 H.I.V.-positive people in a population of over 160 million in Pakistan but around 50 percent of them are in Sindh.

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