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Where do wedding traditions come from?

There are so many wedding traditions and rituals that most of us follow still today, such as throwing the bouquet and cutting the wedding cake. However, many of these traditions have odd histories that we now know nothing about and perhaps would think twice about if we knew.

As an example, the term ‘best man’ is thought to have originated from the time when, if a man wanted to marry a woman, he and his friends would capture her. The man who performed best at this would be then called the ‘best man’ – a tradition thankfully that hasn’t continued! On the other hand, bridesmaids were initially used in order to protect the bride. By dressing the same as the bride, the bridesmaids would confuse any evil spirits that tried to hurt the bride. The veil was used for the same purpose to hide the bride from evil spirits. Similarly, today the bride stands on the left side of the groom. This tradition has also come from the need to protect ,as the groom’s sword arm could be easily used if someone tried to attack his wife-to-be.

The bride was seen as being in need of protection because she was thought to be fortunate in getting married. Because of this, women would want to take parts of her dress and flowers to gain some of this fortune. The bride would therefore throw her flowers away into the crowd to be able to run away from them. This tradition of throwing the bouquet is still performed today and the woman who catches the bouquet is still thought to gain luck because she will be the next to marry. However, in the past the bride initially carried the bouquet, made up of strong-scented herbs, in order to hide the smell of people who had not been able to bathe recently, not an issue now fortunately!

There are wedding traditions that aren’t based on so much violence! The cutting of the wedding cake for example has been performed throughout history to symbolise the future the bride and groom are to share. At first, the cake was meant to be given out to guests by the bride in order to pass on fertility. However, as the number of guests got larger, the cake got larger so the bride needed help to cut it. The groom would help to do this and then it became a tradition to share a piece together before handing it out to represent their union.

A white wedding dress is one of the most iconic images associated with weddings. However, it was not until the Victorian period that this occurred. Before, a bride’s dress could be of any colour, even black, as long as it was her most expensive item of clothing. When Queen Victoria married Prince Albert, she however wore a white dress and it became the fashion still to this day.

The bridal shower is also a very common tradition whereby family and friends visit the bride-to-be before her wedding day. According to tradition, bridal showers originated from the bride’s friends placing presents above her head in some kind of carrier and opening it up so she was quite literally ‘showered’ with gifts. Presumably the gifts were only little!

Many wedding traditions have continued for hundreds of years that they are still used today. Although we do not know many of their origins (and perhaps that is a good thing!), keeping to tradition gives the wedding a special feeling knowing that the rituals you have performed have been passed down through generation after generation before you. Because of this, I think these traditions should always remain the structures to our weddings.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Absolute Media Weddings .