Wedding tradition origin

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There are so many traditions involved in the wedding ceremony regardless to our origin and beliefs. I looked at some of the most popular ones and explored how it all started.

Throwing the boquet at a wedding

A hundreds of year ago having something worn by the bride on her wedding day was considered to be good luck. Stories tell that brides were having their gowns ripped just to be bless with a bit of the good luck. To avoid that the brides would run off straight after the wedding tossing their boquet at the crowd. Whoever caught the bouquet was considered to be lucky. This created the tradition of throwing the bouquet to a crowd of single women with the belief that whoever catches it will get married next. But many people simply associate catching the boquet as having good luck.

Wedding rings exchange
The origin of the wedding rings is in Egypt. The Egyptian wore wedding bands on the third finger of the left hand as they believed there is a vein passing from that finger straight to the heart, just like the love of the bride and groom will.

Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue, and a Sixpence in Your Shoe

This tradition started in Victorian times. It was considered lucky for the bride to take with her to the wedding a collection of old, new, borrowed and blue items as well as a sixpence coin in her shoe.

The tradition carries till today and is explained as ‘something old’ represents the link between the bride and her family. Old item can be a family jewel.
‘Something new’ represent the hopeful success of the couple’s new life together and is usually a new wedding gown.
‘Something borrowed’ is usually taken from a happily married woman so that her fortune will rub off to the new bride and ‘something blue’ is because the colour blue symbolised fidelity of the bride. The sixpence coin in the shoe of the bride was to wish wealth in the marriage life of the new bride.

What is behind the veil?

There are two explanations for this tradition. One is that originally this was a costume followed by ancient Roman, Hebrews, Hindus and other ancient European and Asian people. The veil was to protect from the evil eye. The evil eye was so jealous of the bride’s happiness that by covering the bride’s face the bad spirit wouldn’t know who she was and therefore, couldn’t make trouble at the wedding.

The second explanation is that in old traditions the marriage were set in advance and it was considered as bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding day. The veil would be lifted only once the marriage was sealed.

Rice and Weddings

Rice represents in many cultures fruitfulness and in the wedding ceremony was used as a blessing for great prosperity and many children.

The way it was used during the wedding ceremony was different. In some cultures the bride carried it or saw it in a small bag to her dress, in others the bride and groom ate the rice together during the ceremony and in some cultures the rice was sprinkled over the couple.

If you are about to get married I hope this explains some of the costumes but if you have other traditions you are not sure of I would love to be challenged. Just leave your questions in the comments area below.