More wedding traditions and superstitions coming at you in the second part of our series. If you’re curious, this is for you!

The first kiss after the I Dos comes from a Christian tradition that says that the bride and groom should kiss as an “exchange of souls” fulfilling the script “the two shall become one flesh.” It’s also just a great way to cap off the ceremony and cue everyone to cheer the newlyweds.

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This is a good one, because the rings are the symbols you wear long after the dress has been wrapped for preservation and the thank you cards written. The bands represent the commitment a couple has made and mark them as taken for the rest of the world to see. Or the origins and types of rings over the years, see our blog about wedding rings.

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In the middle ages, having a piece of the bride’s dress, veil or bouquet was considered very lucky and this managed to devolve into people aggressively running at the bride to tear off a scrap of gown. She began throwing her garter as a way of saying “here you go,” and later tossed the bouquet as well to distract other guests. Want to know more? Here’s an entire blog about it.

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From centuries ago until this very day, ringing church bells is a way to announce that something important has happened in the community. You’ll know if you are a royal watcher that the 10 bells at Westminster Abbey pealed a specific “tune” called “Spliced Surprise Royal” when Princess William married Katherine Middleton. It took 3 hours and required over 5,000 orchestrated changes to make the joyful noise. More modest civilians married in churches can ring the bells themselves or request that a church volunteer do it to signal that they are celebrating a happy occasion. As with many other wedding traditions, ringing the bells is said to bring luck and happiness.

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Dancing the Horah (hora, oro in some cultures) is common at receptions in Jewish cultures. Said to originate in the Balkans, dancing in a circle to Hava Nagila brings people close to the family together to celebrate a marriage or milestone. If you’ve never been to a Jewish wedding and gotten swept up in this dance and frivolity, try to before you die. It’s pretty amazing!

The wedding veil is no longer a must for the bride’s attire and often brides decide to forego wearing one if it doesn’t go with their dress, theme or season. Veils date back to Rome, when a bride wore one to ward off or confuse any evil spirits that might be lurking around trying to ruin her future happiness. Some brides in the middle ages wore them because marriages were arranged and if she wasn’t ……. a looker, let’s say …. her father wanted to keep that fact from the groom until the vows were said. Others wore veils as a sign of purity and chastity. Regardless, when worn well, they can be truly gorgeous.

And bridesmaids? Well, we think of them now as the collection of relatives and closest friends you want by your side on your big day, but originally asking people to “stand up” for you was about the legality of the ceremony. In ….. wait for it …… Rome, the law required that you have at least 10 witnesses by your side when you said your vows so that there was no disputing that you were married later.

And there is safety in numbers. With 10 bridesmaids and 10 groomsmen all dressed the same can confuse villains, evil spirits, and vendors you haven’t yet paid.

Carrying the bride over the threshold always makes me think of movies and TV shows in syndicated from the 1950s, when the husband would scoop up his “Little Lady” wife and carry her into the home that she would be cleaning like June Cleaver for the next 40 years. Cynical, I know. But this custom actually originated before the middle ages and again it was about warding off evil spirits that might come into the home on the soles of her feet. Later, it was to protect the bride’s reputation – ie she didn’t want to appear too eager to consummate the marriage.

Why have a best man? Because every guy needs a wing man, someone to hold the ring, help him to stand up straight and show support. Originally, the best man came on the scene in the 16th century with those wacky Germanic Goths. But seriously, the best man’s job was to steal the bride from the neighboring community or disapproving family and get her to the ceremony on time. He was usually the best swordsman too and would watch over the couple during the ceremony.

Wedding cake toppers are sort of mysterious as to how they came to be popular as part of the celebration, but one story that has been repeated is this one:

“Around 100 years or so ago a baker’s daughter who was about to get married asked her father to create a symbol of the unflinching love between her and the groom for the world to see.
After mulling over several ideas, the father decided to make a unique creation – a lovely wedding cake, with two fabulous figurines on top of it. The figurines that the cake top featured were obviously of his daughter and her groom-to-be. The baker had conceived the cake topper as the perfect symbol of their love and bonding. On the wedding day the daughter was moved by the sight of the cake made with love and affection by her father.”

These days, wedding toppers have become a LOT of fun with the inclusion of the couple’s dog, favorite activities, and personalities.

And finally, why do we keep the top tier of our wedding cake? To create a bacterial, freezer burn experience in the freezer! [BA-DUM, CHING!]

Actually, this tradition dates back to the 19th century when couples would save the top to celebrate the birth of their first child. We can no longer keep to such tight schedules and couples in the modern era are having children much later after their I Dos. These days, newlyweds save a big slice or the top and enjoy it on their first anniversary.

For more on wedding traditions and superstitions, check out Part 1 of this mini-series!

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We love family portraits whether they are set in the studio, the great outdoors, a specific location like the mountains or high country, or on our property in our outdoor portrait garden. Pixels on Paper photographs, engagements and weddings, brides, and special events and portraits  of all kinds in our Wilkesboro, NC studio. We would be honored to meet with you, learn about you and your family and be a part of taking special portraits that will become, we hope, family heirlooms.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License All photos are ©2019 Pixels On Paper. Do not copy, crop, or remove watermark.

Why do we do what we do? Seriously. We’re grown-ups. We can think for ourselves! We make micro-decisions daily and huge life-changers sometimes weekly without looking at what others before us have done. But there are some customs that are old that we stick to.

Weddings bring all sorts of traditions and superstitions with them and some mean precisely nothing, but are so tender and metaphorical that we just keep doing them. There’s nothing wrong with that, I think, so let’s explore a few in this little 2-part series.

The coin in the bride’s show…. the Royal Mint in the U.K. has some insight into this tradition:
“In Great Britain, the bride traditionally wears ‘Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.’ But what is less well known is that the rhyme ends ‘and a silver sixpence in her shoe.’ For many years, the father of the bride would slip a sixpence into his daughter’s shoe before she walked down the aisle. The sixpence stood for good luck, and to show that the father wished his daughter prosperity in her marriage.

Sweden has its own version of this tradition. Before a wedding, the bride’s mother gives her daughter a gold coin to put in her right shoe. The bride’s father then gives her a silver coin to put in her left shoe. The coins symbolize their wish that the bride will never go without money.”

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Not only is “something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue” a tradition in Britain, we took it with us when the colonies told King George that we’d have enough. This tradition still stands in the US, but why? Each of these was considered to be lucky. Something old was said to ward off “the evil eye” when children were young, hence older relative and nannies. But more generally, it represented continuity and family. You were taking something old with you into the future.

Something new simply meant a token of hope and optimism. For brides these days, it can be anything new that was purchased for the bride to wear, like her veil.

Something borrowed literally meant that the bride should borrow an item from a happily married woman, something that would stand as a item of luck. Want lots of kids, borrow a slip or an undergarment from a prolific mother. Seriously!! I’m not saying that you have to, but people did back in the day. Maybe a bracelet would work…….

Something blue was again about warding off evil, because blue was a color said to do this. But blue is also a color that represents love, purity and fidelity, so brides would pin a blue ribbon to their garter or inside their hemline just in case.

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Why does the Father “give the bride away” by walking her down the aisle? Traditionally this was about arranged marriages when the combining of families meant more land, more property, more power and resources. The daughter was given to her husband and the two clans or families were joined. She was property – there I said it. But these days, fathers walk their daughters with great tenderness and affection, as if to say, “I raised this amazing creature and now she’s ready to make her own life.”

Rain on your wedding day is dreaded, because you worry that people will be inconvenienced, you’ll all be wet and droopy and outdoor weddings will be ruined. Rain is actually considered for centuries to be good luck. It’s a sign of fertility and cleansing and it can make for some pretty amazing photos. We promise.

Jumping the broom is said to describe a marriage of doubtful validity. Whether is was referring to a civil union instead of a church sanctioned affair, it has origins in Wales, Britain and African culture and was later adopted by African-Americans as part of their wedding traditions. Slaves in the US took it up when marrying on estates where they had no rights. These days, jumping the broom occurs when a couple has said their vows and is headed down the aisle. They are committed to each other and the future.

Breaking a glass at the altar and saying “mazel tov” is a distinctly Jewish tradition.

“Modern explanations have focused on a more solemn theme, claiming that the broken glass reminds Jews assembled at a joyous occasion of the Temples and recalling those individuals, Jew and non-Jew alike, who do not have the freedom to celebrate either religiously or publicly. A more mystical explanation of the ceremony is that the glass represents the couple and that just as the glass, when it is broken, enters a state from which it will never emerge, it is the hope of the community that this couple will never emerge from their married state.”

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Some couples bury bourbon as part of their celebration. This one is easy… and fun. Southern wedding tradition claims that if you bury a bottle of bourbon on the spot where the wedding will take place, then it won’t rain. Rain or shine, dig up the bourbon and raise a glass!

This tradition is actually more about the excitement of seeing each other in the modern era than anything, but it didn’t begin that way. Originally, this practice was related to arranged marriages and a fear that the groom would back out if the bride was less that desirable to look at… buyer’s remorse. Now, brides and grooms enjoy the anticipation of seeing each other the day of as the bride makes her way down the aisle. An improvement, I’d say.

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We love family portraits whether they are set in the studio, the great outdoors, a specific location like the mountains or high country, or on our property in our outdoor portrait garden. Pixels on Paper photographs, engagements and weddings, brides, and special events and portraits  of all kinds in our Wilkesboro, NC studio. We would be honored to meet with you, learn about you and your family and be a part of taking special portraits that will become, we hope, family heirlooms.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License All photos are ©2019 Pixels On Paper. Do not copy, crop, or remove watermark.