Some Special Occasions Celebrated With Champagne

Champagne has been a luxury item for centuries, to the point that many still view it as one even when it’s more accessible now than it ever has been. Despite or perhaps even because of this, many reserve it for special occasions as the pinnacle of the celebration, usually marked with a toast. 

While you can be celebrating any occasion with a Champagne-inspired cocktail, there are a few celebrations where Champagne-drinking is a common tradition. While just a few are outlined below, don’t let this discourage you if you want to celebrate a small victory alone with a glass of Champagne. Always remember that traditions may be expected much of the time but aren’t required; celebrate your way!

Weddings

Your wedding will probably be the biggest celebration of your life. Two people joining themselves together in the eyes of the law and sometimes spiritually because they love each other is a massive occasion and turning point in the lives of the couple. There are a massive amount of wedding traditions as a result. While toasting and drinking Champagne are two of these traditional rituals, the biggest one has to be wearing a white wedding dress.

Interestingly, the wedding dress tradition and the idea of Champagne as a luxury come from very similar places: the upper class. In 1840, Queen Victoria married Prince Albert and wore a white wedding gown. Many royals started doing the same and the trend eventually reached the common people, making it the iconic tradition we now know today.

Graduations

While weddings may be the largest celebration of most people’s lives, the graduation ceremony likely sits comfortably in the second spot. After all, spending multiple years of your life studying, training and generally preparing yourself for a new career you’ll likely hold until retirement is a massive deal and a sign of accomplishment and commitment. 

As expected for such a momentous occasion, many graduation traditions began long ago and are still maintained today. Drinking Champagne at the parties held afterward is one such tradition, though it is only done at the college graduation in some countries due to the legal drinking age.

While the gown is an iconic part of every graduation, the ensemble simply isn’t complete without the cap, called a mortarboard. They used to be hoods but slowly evolved into the flat cap we see today. Hoods are still a part of the outfit but are attached to the gown and aren’t worn on the head anymore. Until 1895, many mortarboards were topped with pom-poms, but the tassel requirement was added that year by the Intercollegiate Code of Academic Costume.

Cap tossing actually didn’t start with college graduates since the code strictly prohibited removing them outside of the prayer. It actually started in 1912 with United States Naval Academy graduates who tossed their old caps into the air to wear their new officer caps instead. The tradition spread around the world and is now done by almost all graduates, much to the chagrin of the original code writers.

New Year’s

While every culture does so differently, celebrating the new year is one of the few celebrations ubiquitous across the world. There are few celebrations as exciting and fleeting as this one, and many consider it the perfect time for Champagne as a result. Pair this celebratory drink with the lucky meal tradition and you can get some…interesting results in some places. 

For example, it may not be that big of a deal in Italy, where you eat twelve spoonfuls of lentils, but it could be a problem for those in Estonia as they eat up to twelve different feasts in one day to give themselves as much strength as possible for the new year. If this is your tradition of choice, maybe cut back on the alcohol intake for the sake of your liver.

Birthdays

Much like New Year’s, we celebrate our birthdays once every year, and each culture does so differently. An intriguing example is Spain’s birthday tradition where the ears of the birthday person are gently pulled once for every year of their age. So someone turning twenty would receive twenty ear tugs. 

Germany also has a unique birthday tradition that you may have actually broken before: it’s considered bad luck to wish someone a “happy birthday” before it’s their actual birthday. Once the clock strikes midnight and it’s officially your birthday, though, happy wishes will be coming from every direction alongside smiles, cards, gifts or even a few glasses of Champagne.