Finally, the father (or other close family member) and the bride enter, arm in arm. The bride walks on the left and the father or escort leads her to the front of the aisles, taking his place next to the mother of the bride. A Protestant wedding is similar with a few twists. The mothers of both the bride and the groom are seated after all other guests have taken their seats, usually escorted by a male family member, friend of the groom or other usher. Hopefully one or two generations from now, as the children from these tentative first interracial marriages start to create their own marriages, the boundaries will be further relaxed and people will be allowed to love and live as they choose, rather than have their choices narrowed to one race for no other reason than that’s how it’s always been done and therefore should always be done. The multi-layered, highly decorated cakes that are common today are a recent addition to the wedding ceremony, first becoming popular around the late nineteenth century. They replaced the loaves of bread that were historically broken during the wedding ceremony. The tradition of bridegrooms in the wedding party is said to have its roots in the era of very early history when a man would rely on his friends to abduct a woman from her family for his bride. For those they may not want to have just a paper to tell them how important it is, especially if they’ve already lived together for a few years. In a few states, couples that live together a certain amount of time, normally seven years or more, are considered to have a common law marriage. A marriage that is legal is one that is performed by a minister or someone that is qualified to perform the ceremony. Don’t listen to marriage advice like this because the people giving it only know about this dinner party – they don’t know about the other events your family has had that he’s attended, they don’t know that he has a prior engagement for the same night that you agreed to weeks before, or that your great aunt refuses to talk to him on account of the fact she overheard him tell someone years ago that he thought she boiled her vegetables to extinction. For those genuine couples it is the thought of love and marriage that makes them want to give up all that they are familiar with in order to have a “traditional” life of marriage with the person they’ve fallen in love with. The problem is that because of the false marriage applications, the genuine couples are made to jump through immigration hoops before their dreams of love and marriage and happy ever after can take place.