Let us look at some of the people at this feast. In the foreground we see two men carrying between them a rectangular wooden door being used as a large tray to serve the food. Right away we see sameness and difference working together for one purpose. One man is wearing a red jacket and a green hat. The other man is wearing a red hat and a greenish jacket---sameness and difference. They are the same height, and going in the same direction for the same reason. Yet we feel each one of them was respected as an individual by Bruegel. And as we look at them there is a pleasing sense of differences helping each other, for the good of all. We see them even before we see the bride. She is the girl seated in front of the dark green rectangular cloth of honor. At first, when I looked at her, I thought she was in herself and complacent. She reminded me of myself. When I got married, I thought now that I had a husband I did not need anyone else. But as I looked more closely I saw that she is both set apart and in the midst. She is seated in what I have learned is the traditional posture of modesty for bridal portraits. She looks warmly contained within herself, and at the same time she seems pleased with the bustling activity around her. And Bruegel shows she is related to everything and everyone.
Her garments and flesh contain all the colors in this painting. The red of her cheeks and her crowning headband, adorned with tiny peacock feathers, is like the red of the jackets and caps around her. The deep brown of her gown is in the men''''s soft shoes, coats and hats, and in the eaves of the barn. The green she is wearing can be found in the apron of the child on the floor---who also wears a peacock feather, a big one. And this green is in the leaves seen through the open door on the upper left. The rectangular opening of this doorway with its green trees is something like the rectangle of green before which the bride sits. This open door is the furthest thing from us in the painting, but it is essential to the composition. I feel it is a beautiful criticism of what I have learned is one of the worst mistakes a man and woman can make with each other---to use their closeness, their "kinship" to shut the world out.