Everyone wants to obtain married, right? No? Okay, well, many of us want to get married. With the exception of those who don’t or already are. Right, let me start again. I was aiming to share superstitions and how they started — and the niche is weddings, in the event you hadn’t guessed. It’s perhaps a little known fact very much of the ritual and pomp surrounding the preparation and actual ceremony associated with a marriage cores back again to ancient beliefs and superstitions — a lot of it built to ward off evil spirits. You thought chivalry was behind carrying the bride over the threshold? Nope. It was because if the bride fell on her behalf face and broke her nose, it was considered an ill omen for the marriage. Here certainly are a few more.
A well-known superstition regarding marriages is it is misfortune for the bride and groom to see each other the day before and the day of the marriage — however, this superstition is situated more on finances than anything else. In the days of pre-arranged marriages, most prospective couples had yet to meet. What would happen if the groom took a sneak peak at his betrothed, passed out briefly before being escorted outside for a breath of outdoors and was never seen again? Financial loss and humiliation for the bride and her family, that’s what. And and so the superstition that it was misfortune to see the bride before the marriage began — and it was simply to help keep the groom (or bride) from backing out of a company agreement!
The concentrate on warding off negativity continues with the bride and her gown – it is said that the bride should not make her own dress because each stitch she sews will be matched with a marital tear. I can only imagine just how many stitches a marriage gown requires. She’d be crying’the blues until the day she dies, or gets a divorce, whichever comes first. She can also be not to tempt the fates by writing and rewriting her new name, or by looking to the mirror too many times as she prepares for the ceremony. And just so you realize, the gown was not always white: that began with Queen Victoria who traded the traditional silver for white and set a brand new trend. Prior to that, brides dons either their utmost dress or would obtain a new one in any colour they liked. Hopefully not black. That would have been a bad omen, indeed.
Speaking of dresses, way back, the bride and her bridesmaids were all brightly and beautifully attired, sometimes in dresses that looked quite similar. This is done purposely – to confuse the devil and evil spirits, who abhorred happy occasions and jocularity and were particularly partial to the energy surrounding young brides. The bridesmaids’main purpose was to camouflage the bride and confuse the devil and his consorts.
The wedding veil served two purposes, the initial being an additional shield to help thwart the evil spirits, who could not distinguish her since the bride and the next to shield her face from her future husband – remember the guy who went AWOL? Well, even on the walk down the aisle, there is still time to flee – the veil kept the groom in place at the altar until the nuptials were cemented.
Speaking of the groom, the very best man acted in very similar way since the bridesmaids, except his main duty after protecting the groom was to help keep him from going AWOL, find him if he did and to obtain him to the church on time. With the ring.
The kiss at the conclusion of the marriage vows isn’t even predicated on romance — or it didn’t begin that way. The Romans did not consider a marriage valid until the kiss was exchanged — similar to shaking hands to seal the deal.
And now to tossing the bouquet…another romantic event? Wrong. In Britain, folks used to attempt to become the main joyous occasion by running following the bride and hoping to get’an item of her’- her clothes, her hair – whatever. They believed that by touching her or having something of hers that they’d share in her happiness.
Except her happiness sometimes considered fear and she would throw the flowers in an endeavor to distract her pursuers. Originally, shoes were thrown at the bride and groom and it was considered lucky if they were hit! What? This can be explained by looking at an older and less known tradition by which the daddy of the bride gave the groom a footwear to symbolize his relinquishing of control of his daughter to her new husband. Ahead of the tradition of throwing flowers, the bride, who was now a married woman, would throw among her shoes for similar reasons: passing the potential for marriage to another…but I suppose too many people lost an eye.
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