It can drive couples to quibble and gnaw at the tiniest details -- flowers, cars, tuxedos, place settings. It can estrange family members, infuriate friends and create stress on a fledgling relationship.

For humans, through recorded history, it's almost as universal as birth and death: the wedding.

It is about tradition and religion and (usually) love, all brought together to herald a new phase of life. Whether it's an arranged union in India, an elaborate ceremony in a Japanese shrine or a multicultural affair in the United States, weddings are milestones of the human condition.

asap dispatched AP photographers around the world to capture the different flavors of love on Earth.

They captured scenes from nine weddings in eight countries: Japan and India, Iran and Russia, Uzbekistan and Guatemala, Colombia and the United States. Photographers followed each couple taking the oath of wedlock to their private celebrations -- some surprisingly and remarkably different from Western-style weddings.

See the interactive feature here

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