means The ceremony and celebration in which two people are formally married to each other.

from From Old English 'weddung,' the act of pledging, built on the verb 'weddian,' to wed — which itself comes from 'wedd,' meaning a pledge or security. The same Germanic root surfaces in words for a stake or wager; tellingly, it's also a cousin of the Latin 'vas/vadis' (a pledge or surety) and the source of Gothic 'wadi.' So a 'wedding' was originally less about romance and more about a binding promise backed by collateral — fitting, given the lifelong contract still at its heart.