Wedding Traditions You’ll Want to Know About

The average wedding is chalk full of traditions that everyone follows but few understand. Most of us don’t even think twice about these traditions. We just include them in our wedding and forget about it. To give you a better grip on these interesting and unique wedding traditions, we’ve listed a few of the most common that might show up on your wedding day.

1. The Truth About Your “Ring” Finger

When he got down on his knee to ask you to spend the rest of your life together, he placed that ring on your fourth finger on your left hand. Why? Because the fourth finger on your left hand was once believed to connect directly to your heart via the love vein. Crazy, right?

2. Sapphires Hold Special Meaning

Did your beau get you a sapphire wedding ring? If so, it represents marriage happiness, according to a long line of symbols associated with jewels. Men, listen up!

3. Why You Wear a Veil

It was once believed by the Romans and Greeks that a bride is protected from evil spirits on her wedding day by a veil. Sorry ladies, it originally had very little to do with wedding day style.

4. Something Blue, Something Old

On your wedding day, you’ll probably try to find something borrowed, blue and old to wear. You wear blue to represent fidelity, love, and purity. You wear something old to join the past with the present and future. We love this tradition!

5. Cut The Cake: Break The Loaf?

Romans used to break bread over a bride’s head in hopes of increasing her fertility. Over the past 2,000 years, that’s turned into cutting the wedding cake!

6. Tying The Knot

From the Hindus to the Celtic, tying a bride and groom’s hands together has been a symbolic gesture of eternal commitment to one another as a newly married couple. This act has led to the phrase we know today as “tying the knot.”

7. The Protective Groom & Groomsmen

Countless cultures throughout history have promoted the act of the groom kidnapping the bride with the help of the groom’s friend, or groomsmen! Also, when standing at the alter, the groom would always stand to the bride’s right side, keeping his sword hand free incase of jealous attackers.

8. Tossing the Garter & Bouquet

Before our traditional garter and bouquet toss, wedding guests used to tear off a part of a bride’s dress for good luck safekeeps. Now, we throw these items at our guests for the same reason.

The Romans believed that evil spirits would curse new couples. To throw them off their tracks, the Romans decided to have bridesmaids dress exactly like the bride to confuse them. Today, bridesmaids wear similar dresses to the bride.

10. Cross the Threshold

The act of the groom carrying the bride over the threshold after marriage also originated with the idea of protecting her from evil spirits. Apparently, evil spirits are waiting for the bride in her new home.

11. The Reason for June Weddings

We can blame the Romans for this one too. June is such a popular month to get married in because the Roman Goddess Juno is also known as the mother of marriage and childbirth.

12. Honeymoons

The Honeymoon is a Norse tradition. Brides and grooms would hide after their wedding and a family member would bring them honey wine to drink for a whole moon cycle. Which gives us the term “honeymoon.” Those are just a few of the wedding traditions you should know about!

Author

Gonzalez J. Wedding Photography

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