red wedding

plural red weddings

1. datedcommunismA wedding ceremony in the Soviet Union in which the couple pledged loyalty to the state or communism in addition to reciting marriage vows.

   Soon "Red weddings" replaced church weddings for dedicated Communists.

   1998, Ronald Grigor Suny, The Soviet Experiment: Russia, the USSR, and the Successor States, page 186

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   As the church sought to make these events significant with its ceremonies, so did the Communists with their “Red weddings,” “Red funerals” and “Red christenings.”

   1942 October, Albert Rhys Williams, “Religion in the USSR”, in Soviet Russia Today, page 15

   They celebrated “red weddings” at factories, bride and groom standing before a piece of machinery and pledging their loyalty first to the communist state, then to each other.

   1994, Woodford McClellan, Russia: The Soviet Period and After, page 77

2. figurativelyoftenA situation involving carnage, bloodshed, or chaos; a massacre; a mass culling.

   "Has the red wedding started?" one employee wrote on Slack, a reference to a massacre scene in "Game of Thrones."

   2022 November 3, Kate Conger, Ryan Mac, “Elon Musk Begins Layoffs at Twitter”, in The New York Times

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   Although ABC’s cancellation slate is far from a Red Wedding, these seven shows got the axe: “Whiskey Cavalier,” “For the People,” “Dancing with the Stars: Juniors,” “Child Support,” “The Alec Baldwin Show,” “The Kids Are Alright” and “Splitting Up Together.”

   2019 May 16, Lynn Elber, “Haddish, stability mark ABC schedule”, in Stars and Stripes, page 18

   A source familiar with the matter told Quartz that Uber employees are referring to the layoffs as the "marketing red wedding," a reference to a massacre that takes place in Game of Thrones.

   2019 July 29, Alison Griswold, “Uber is laying off one-third of its global marketing team”, in Quartz