Wedding and Marriage

A wedding is the ceremony or celebration at which two people are married. The word wedding is often used before another noun. Below are some examples of its use:

• They planned their wedding [=ceremony and celebration after] for June 24th, in the afternoon.
• She picked a wedding dress with lace trim.
• The wedding invitation arrived in the mail.
• Their wedding photographer did a wonderful job capturing the day.
• They will be attending two weddings next month.
• They had a wonderful time at the wedding celebrating the happy couple.

A marriage is the relationship or legal union that exists between two people. The ceremony uniting two people is also called a marriage. Below are some examples of its use:

• The priest has performed many marriages. [=he has married many people; he has joined many couples in marriage]
• They had a happy marriage.
• The couple celebrated 25 years of marriage. [=25 years of being married]
• His second marriage was much happier than his first.
• They voted to legalize same-sex marriage.
• They are related by marriage. [=they are related because one of them is married to a family member of the other.
• They had an arranged marriage.

I hope this helps.