The Amish Way

09/26/2025

Amish wedding season in the community that I grew up in, starts in the springtime and ends in the fall time. With summertime being the busiest time of all. There are a lot of people invited to Amish weddings with everyone having the specific clothing on, depending on if they are cooks or table-waiters or the hosla; which would be the young boys, or the immediate family, or the people that mostly just attend the ceremony followed by the lunch. It takes long to plan out an Amish wedding as they have to reserve a trailer, and a cooler, and large tents and things like that, plus usually the main part of the reception is held at the bride's parents home so they would clean up their home up to a year in advance, with cleaning every inch, painting the house, maybe planting other trees or nice flower gardens, making sure everything is looks almost perfect. Or even building a large shop.
Usually some non Amish people are invited to an Amish wedding as well, and they have their own separate table for the lunch meal. They are usually not invited to the ceremony, maybe just the last part where they watch the bride and groom say yes, but they are typically only invited for the lunch and afterward for the reception. They also have slightly different setup for the non Amish people's table such as menu cards or something like that.
In the afternoon after the lunch meal and all the cooks and table waiters are done with their jobs, then everyone who's still at the wedding sits around and talks. The men sing a lot, out of the song books that they use for church service. The bride and groom also open gifts in the afternoon and the young boys and some of the men play volleyball. 🏐

Photo credit: Howard Pierce

09/25/2025

In each Amish community, everyone has to dress according to the Ordnung rules. The Ordnung rules are slightly different from one Amish Church to the next and from one Amish Community to the next. You can tell if someone is Swartzentruber Amish or from a sub-group of Swartzentruber Amish just by the way that they dress and same for Old Order Amish and different subgroups of Old Order Amish. New Order Amish dress very similar to the most lenient type of Old Order Amish. All the men have to wear pants and a certain type of shirt and sometimes suspenders but it is differently made from one Community to the next. All the women all have to wear dresses but the dresses are a little differently made from one Community to the next. An Amish person cannot wear whatever style Amish clothing that they want to, it has to be according with their Ordnung rules of the Amish church district that they are living in. A HUGE part of the Amish Ordnung is about the dress code. The rules are never ending. Some are allowed to wear bright colors, some are only allowed to wear dark colors, some have to wear aprons; an apron in the Amish is a more formal piece of clothing. Some don't have to wear aprons all the time, some have to wear a bonnet in public more than others, the head coverings vary from one Community to the next as well as the straw hats for the men.

⬇️Click on the photos for more details⬇️

09/23/2025

In the Amish community that I grew up in, we had to wear a bonnet and shawl at certain times. All the women, no matter what age, have to wear a bonnet and shawl to go to church. In the summertime if it's too hot, then we didn't have to wear a shawl but we still had to wear a bonnet. Young Amish women in Rumspringa usually do not wear a shawl anywhere else and rarely a bonnet anywhere else. Otherwise, the Amish women are supposed to wear their shawl to certain places, according to the Ordnung rules of their church. And the bonnet is supposed to be worn anytime they go in public, when they get to their destination, then they take it off. The bonnet is worn when Amish ladies go grocery shopping, or visiting family and friends, and any place they go. It's always worn to and from places. This is part of the Ordnung rules and it varies from one Amish church to the next and from one Amish community to the next.

09/22/2025

In the fall time some Amish have pumpkin patches, when they have extra pumpkins then they sell it maybe out by the road or at a produce stand. In the Amish community I grew up in there was an Amish man with a produce stand and he planted a lot of pumpkins, big and small and all sizes, carving pumpkins and pie pumpkins and then he would sell it at his produce stand to the public. Amish don't typically carve pumpkins or participate much in Halloween, but a lot of them would buy pumpkins and gourds for decoration pieces in front of their homes outside. I remember at Amish school we sometimes had some pumpkins and gourds for fall decoration. My mom loved to buy a few pumpkins and a bunch of mums, (Chrysanthemums) every year to put around the outside of the house near the front entrance.
Who buys pumpkins from the Amish?

09/20/2025

😋 😋

09/20/2025

In the Amish, we had to wear very specific headwear according to the Ordnung of the Amish church we attended. We had to wear a head covering at almost all times, or as we called it, a 'cap' or in the Amish language, 'kapp'. At certain times, we also had to wear a black bonnet on top of the head covering. At other certain times, we were allowed to wear an indoor scarf thing. In the winter, we had another scarf for outdoors. The Amish have extremely specific rules about the head coverings that have to be followed. In this video, I show a visual representation of the four different types of headwear that we had to wear in the Amish community I grew up in.

09/18/2025

There are many different types of buggies from each Amish community. Some from the most conservative type of Amish, such as Swartzentruber Amish or subgroups of Swartzentruber Amish. Some are from less conservative type of Old Order Amish, or subgroups of Old Order Amish. Each community and each church has their own rules that they have for the buggies that they have to follow. They cannot choose to have any type of buggy that they want, it has to be in accordance with their Ordnung. There are family buggies, or as we call them 'Surrey buggies', or Single buggies, or Open buggies, which we called hackies. Old Order Amish from one community will have different style buggies than Old Order from another community and same with any group of Amish. In the photos, I'll explain their system for operating the lights on the buggies, and much more!

⬇️Click on the photos for up close details⬇️

09/17/2025

In the Amish, we had to wear black socks and black shoes. A baby girl in the Amish is allowed to wear gray socks, and a young woman in Rumspringa is usually allowed to wear gray socks as well. But a member of the Amish church and Amish school girls are supposed to wear only black socks. As far as footwear, it depends on your parents' rules. But we had to wear black shoes to go to places and only at certain times were we allowed to wear flip-flops or Crocs or sandals. The Amish clothing rules are very specific, so sometimes it is hard to explain each detail. It's part of the Amish Ordnung.

09/17/2025