10 Wedding Traditions and Their Strange History

10 Wedding Traditions and Their Strange History

When you think about a beautiful bride gliding down the aisle in THE dress, her beautiful bouquet in hand with her father at her side might want to think about where that picture perfect moment came from. Most people don't realize some wedding "traditions" that we have didn't even start till around the 1920's. Thanks to howstuffworks.com here is an example of 10 wedding traditions with some not so picture perfect.

10. The Bouquet

Instead of walking down the aisle carrying a bouquet of roses or lilies could you image adoring a bouquet of garlic and dill. Yeah not so romantic.  Until more recently that is what brides carried. It originated back to the time of the plague, when people used to carry herbs in a desperate effort to survive. Over the years brides started adding flowers that smelled a little sweeter and an eventually the different blooms would represent a different meaning. 

9. Throwing the Garter

The garter itself was actually invented to protect the from the guests. During mid evil times in England and France with what was called "fingering the stocking" where guests would flock to the wedding chamber to check the bride to make sure the marriage had been consummated.  In France the bride would be rushed by guests at the end of the ceremony to snag a piece of the bridal gown for good luck. Guests would tear the dress to shreds and often the bride would be left battered and in tears at the altar. 

8. Bridesmaids' Dresses

Before you dread showing your beloved bridesmaids' your dress of choice know that they were originally dressed to look exactly like the bride. Yep that's right. Imagine dressing all of your best friends in your exact wedding dress. This was to ward off any evil spirits and to keep them from being able to fixate on one bride. During the Victorian Era it changed to bridesmaids having short veils to be able to discern from the bride and her cathedral style veil. When the fear of evil spirits waned and commercial dyes became available the first tacky bridesmaids' dresses made their debut. With colors such as harvest gold, avacado, and watermelon it ensured the bride would be the best dressed woman in the church. 

7. The Bridal Veil

The veil has many origins, it is originally thought that the bride would be attacked from evil spirits. Yet again, so much in fact that the Romans would protect their brides it flame colored veils to scare the spirits off. A second origin was so the groom wouldn't have time to back out if he wasn't pleased with what he saw. This would cause the brides family great embarrassment, and because most brides were used as currency it could cause the father of the bride to loose an easy way to pay off debt or gain status. The bride was not unveiled till the kiss, not giving the groom time to back out of the deal. 

6. The Honeymoon

This goes back to the times when most grooms abducted their brides. The phase "do you take this woman", well back then they took it to a more literal sense. It was so common that the Norse made a game that after the reception the groom would "abduct" his new bride for the next 30dys. Each day a member of the family or a friend would bring a cup of honey wine, making the 30dys of comsumption the honeymoon. 

5. Wedding and Engagement Rings

Unlike the crystal clear stone that we are familiar with today, the diamond is a very recent tradition. It is said that Romans and Egyptians were the first to use wedding rings. It is also rumored that wedding rings were considered a newer less restrictive version of the shackles a captured bride would have worn. During the 12th century a pope declared that weddings would be held in the church and that the brides were to receive rings. He also extended the length of the engagement before the couple could marry making the rings more popular. Those rings definitely did not have diamonds. Most were bands of some sort of metal, and if you were wealthy enough it would contain a ruby, emerald or some other precious stone. The popularity of gemstone rings are rising due to the nasty war-torn history of diamond mining.

4. The BIG Wedding

Most brides think that as you write deposits for this and that they are sticking to some long held tradition. Well, not really. Aristocratic familie's have held large wedding throughout history to show off their place in society most were simple backyard events, and some didn't even get that. As people were settling new parts of the U.S. a preacher was not always available. This made way for the common law marriage. Couples that became monogamous and live together receive the same rights as traditionally married couples. In larger communities, the bride's female family members and friends would hold special quilting circles to embroider and create her trousseau. The ceremony and reception were more community events. Next the high society started collecting gifts.  According to howstuffworks.com apparently there's a whole literature surrounding the recording of gifts, the photographing of gift tables and the praising or humiliation of the gift-givers, based upon the lavishness of their donations. And, well, if it was good enough for the rich, then it was good enough for everyone else, too. So the big "to do" wedding isn't so much a long lived tradition but more of a "keep up with the Jones'" movement. 

3. Jumping the Broom
While this tradition is popular in a lot of African American ceremonies, great great grandma might not be so enthusiastic about the idea. The tradition goes back to slave times when it was illegal for slaves to marry. Since they could not make any marriage official with a preacher they needed another way to tie the knot in secret. When slavery was abolished they abandoned the jumping of the broom tradition since it was tied to their time of bondage. It was later revived when Kunta Kinte jumped the broom on a southern plantation with his bride in Alex Haley's "Roots." He viewed jumping the broom as a powerful bond with the person despite the life that he had no control over. 
  
2. Tying Tin Cans to the Car Bumper
So imagine this, you have just thrown a wedding for the whole town and like most brides you exhausted. A few hours after you have drifted off to a pleasant nights sleep your awakened by neighbors and friends banging on pots and pans under your window. You are expected to adorn the full wedding attire and feed the mob so they will go away. Sounds like every brides worst nightmare but was practised on the frontier into the 20th century. The American version originally derived in France.   There communities would host a charivari for widowers and grooms that came from out of town who happened to snatch a bride away from the local boys. As payment the groom would often have to prepare a midnight meal to appease offended locals. The French brought the practise to the Mississippi Valley and it caught on with the locals. Obviously the midnight meals were something that the grooms would want to avoid, historians have even found evidence that prosperous ranchers and farmers would host large barbecue's to keep from getting "shivaree'd." As howstuffworks.com put it "Tying the tin cans on the bumper may serve as a poor substitution for an all-night party, but it's interesting to note that the decorating of the car is generally done by the groom's male friends -- men who effectively have lost their chances with the bride who's being whisked away."

1. The Breaking of the Glass
Jewish wedding are full of many traditions like standing under the Chuppah, the bride circling the groom seven times and the famous scene of the groom crushing the wine glass under his heel. One origin is that this tradition is to remind jew's of the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. A more romantic origin is that it is supposed to remind the bride and groom of how fragile their relationship is and how they must preserve it.