Here are the origins of some wedding traditions
Wedding traditions have been observed all over the world but have you ever wondered how these traditions started?
One of these most popular traditions is the white wedding dress for the bride. Different cultures have different interpretations of this. For some, it represents the bride’s purity as she will accept her groom to be his husband forever.
However, nowadays, some brides are more adventurous as they opt for different colors or sometimes, they are not wearing other outfits and not a dress.
Based on the article in Mental Floss, the white wedding dress was popularized by Queen Victoria when she married Prince Albert in 1840. However, it was Mary, Queen of Scots who first wore a white wedding dress when she married the Dauphin of France in 1558.
On the other hand, it was Queen Victoria who started the trend as plebeians immediately began to copy her.
In the history of mankind, it is a new thing that some fathers would hand their daughters to the groom for certain purposes such as payment for debt, monetary peace offerings, or to get into a higher social stratum.
It was said that in giving away a bride, the veil she wears is used to cover her face so that, the groom could only see her face when it was for them to kiss, and then he does not have the liberty to back out anymore.
One of the important members of the groom’s entourage is his Best Man. Commonly, he is the groom’s best friend or brother. However, the intention of the best man back in the day was to be the groom’s right arm when it was needed to kidnap the bride because of her opposing parents.
If the groom has his Best Man, the bride has her bridesmaids with matching outfits. Some people may think that this was because the bride wanted to stand out during her special day. However, it was believed that the matching dresses were intended to prevent ill-willed spirits or jealous former suitors from spotting the bride and cursing, kidnapping, or throwing rocks at her.
Throwing of bouquet and garter is also one of the popular wedding traditions. This came from the belief that after the “I do” portion, the bride and groom should consummate the marriage by going to a nearby room.
Apparently, to make it official, there should be witnesses and this led to wedding guests crowding around the bed. The chaotic scene involved grabbing the wedding dress as they believed it would give you good luck if you had a piece of the bride’s outfit. Realizing that this was creepy, it was opted to do the modest way and it is throwing the bouquet and the groom had to take away from the bride to denote that they were getting to the consummation of their marriage.
It is common to hear the “something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue” phrase when weddings are happening. Something old denotes the bride’s tie to her family and her past while something new means her new life. Something borrowed must come from a person who already is a successfully married wife while something blue represents important things like faithfulness, loyalty, and purity.