Marriage Symbols
The act of marriage is full of symbolism. It marks the essential union between male and female to create and nurture new life. The symbolism of wedding customs is shown in the wedding ring, joining of hands, and the presence of small children around the bride. The children are a form of sympathetic magic, and symbolize future children. The custom of throwing grain, rice, or confetti is another fertility symbol. Even the wedding cake can be seen as a fertility symbol as food is often used as a sexual symbol. The custom of breaking a glass or other small object at the wedding reception has sexual overtones, too, as it symbolizes the consummation of the marriage.14
Wedding Cake
The tradition of a wedding cake goes back to Roman times when a cake of meal was crumbled over the bride’s head to provide good luck. The wedding cake symbolizes good fortune and fertility. It also brings good luck to everyone who eats it. The wedding cake should be made with an abundance of good quality ingredients to symbolize a long lasting, rich, and happy marriage.
The bride cuts the first slice of cake to provide good fortune in the marriage. Nowadays, her groom helps in this task, to ensure that he shares the good fortune. This also shows they will share all their worldly goods in the future.
There are a number of pleasant traditions surrounding the wedding cake. One is that the bride puts aside a slice of cake to ensure that her husband remains faithful. A tier of the cake can be put aside for later use as a christening cake. This ensures future children. Any unmarried women at the wedding should take a piece of cake home with them and place it under their pillows. This may produce dreams in which they see their own future partners.
Wedding Gown
Bridal outfits are extremely important; none more so than the wedding dress. Wedding dresses date back to ancient Egypt, where the bride wore a dress of sheer silk that clung to her body and concealed nothing. Since then, more and more layers were gradually added, mainly for modesty reasons.
Queen Victoria broke with tradition by wearing a white wedding dress. Up until then, royal brides had always worn silver. Of course, after her wedding, every bride wanted to be married in white as it symbolized purity and innocence.
Nowadays, the bride is free to wear any color she chooses. It makes good sense for her to wear the color that is most becoming to her. An old rhyme from Warwickshire, England rather facetiously discusses different color possibilities:
Married in white, you have chosen all right,
Married in green, ashamed to be seen,
Married in grey, you’ll go far away,
Married in red, you’ll wish yourself dead,
Married in blue, your lover is true,
Married in yellow, ashamed of your fellow,
Married in black, you’ll wish yourself back,
Married in pink, of you he’ll think,
Married in brown, you’ll live out of town.
There are several variations of this rhyme.
As well as the dress, the bride had to wear “something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.” Because there is one more line to this verse (And a silver sixpence in your shoe) many brides place a coin in their left shoe to ensure the marriage will be prosperous.
“Something old” is ideally an object that belonged to a happily married old woman. Her husband had to be alive, as the magic did not work if she was widowed. This is an example of “sympathetic magic.” The idea is that some of the good fortune that the old woman had experienced in her marriage would be passed on to the new bride.
“Something new” is usually the wedding gown itself. However, it can be anything at all.
“Something borrowed” originally meant something golden. Consequently, it was usually a precious piece of jewelry loaned by a relative. The gold object symbolized the sun, the source of all life, and wearing this borrowed object signified a union between the sun and the bride.
“Something blue” is to honor the moon, the protector of all women.
There are also a number of superstitions attached to the wedding gown. It used to be considered bad luck for the bride to make her own wedding dress. It was also considered to be tempting fate for the bride to try on the dress before her wedding day. Another superstition is that the bride should not look at herself in a mirror once she is completely dressed, before leaving for the church.
Bridal Veil
There are several suggestions as to the origin of the bridal veil. The most popular belief is that the traditional bridal veil was worn to conceal the bride’s beauty from any evil spirits who might try to steal her away. Consequently, the veil could not be lifted until after the marriage had been solemnized. Another possibility is that the veil protected the bride from accidentally encountering the evil eye, which would be disastrous for the success of the marriage. The bridal veil may even have come from the East, where a man could not look at the bride’s face until after she was married. Some folklorists suggest the veil signifies the bride’s submission to her husband, but others say it indicates the opposite. The Greeks and Romans used a bridal canopy that was held over the bride and groom to keep the evil eye away. It is possible that the bridal veil is descended from that.
No matter what the origin, the bridal veil is still popular. Some brides like to wear the bridal veil of a friend or relative who is happily married. This is another example of sympathetic magic.
Bridal Bouquet
Flowers symbolize sex and fecundity. Consequently, the bridal bouquet symbolizes joyful lovemaking and fertility. The ribbons around the flowers are believed to bring good luck. There should also be knots, known as lover’s knots, at the end of each ribbon. These symbolize unity and wholeness. Throwing the bouquet is a recent innovation. Whoever catches it will be the next bride.
Flower Buttonholes
A boutonniere, or buttonhole, is a flower or small bouquet worn in the buttonhole of a lapel. Boutonnieres were originally given to wedding guests to wish them luck.
Wedding Ring
The wedding ring is a perfect circle, with no beginning and no end. It symbolizes union, eternity, and completeness. No one knows where wedding rings originated. In ancient Egypt, married women wore grass bracelets around their wrists. This told other people that the woman was taken, and also signified that she accepted her husband’s power and protection. The Romans introduced rings of precious metals, such as silver, gold, and platinum. As well as showing that the woman was married, it also showed the husband was prepared to trust her with valuable possessions.
The wedding ring has been worn on different fingers at various times. In ancient Greece, the index finger was normally used. In India, it was the thumb. The fourth finger was used for some time, until the third finger of the left hand became generally accepted. This dates back to an ancient Egyptian belief that a vein connected this finger directly with the heart. Once a ring was placed on this finger, the love was sealed in and could never escape.
During Victorian times, it was common for the bridesmaids to push a piece of the wedding cake through the wedding ring nine times. This meant she would meet her husband, and get married, within one year.
One of the most touching stories about wedding rings I have heard involves William of Orange (1650–1702). When he died, he was wearing on a ribbon tied around his neck, the wedding ring that he had presented to his wife, Princess Mary (1662–1694) in 1677. A lock of her hair was entwined around the ring.15
Rice Throwing
Rice throwing is an ancient custom. It possibly began in the Orient where rice is a symbol of fertility, prosperity, and health. Consequently, throwing rice over the happy couple was an effective way to wish these qualities on the marriage.
The ancient Romans threw nuts and sweets of various kinds at the bride. The Anglo-Saxons tossed wheat and barley on the floor of the church for the bride to walk on.
Another possible source of this ancient custom is the belief that evil spirits were attracted to weddings. They were envious and jealous of the bride. However, they were also hungry and ate the rice, which kept them away from the bride.
Honeymoon
The word “honeymoon” comes from the ancient Teuton practice of drinking mead, a wine made from honey, for a month, or one moon’s cycle, after the wedding. Apparently, Attila the Hun drank so much mead on his honeymoon that he suffocated and died.16
The honeymoon itself goes back to the time when a groom captured his bride by force and had to keep well away until the bride’s relatives had ceased looking for her. It was a diplomatic move on the new husband’s part to bring gifts for his in-laws when he brought his wife home.
Carrying the Bride Across the Threshold
The origins of this practice are no longer known. However, it is possibly related to the old practice of marriage by capture. Another possibility is that by carrying the bride over the threshold, she cannot stumble, as stumbling is considered a bad omen.17
Horseshoe
A horseshoe is considered a protective amulet against the evil eye. This probably derives from the fact that the horseshoe protects the horse. However, the crescent shape of a horseshoe reminded people of the moon and this encouraged other symbolism. Horseshoes can be hung with their prongs pointing either up or down. Masculine energy is produced if the prongs point upward, and female energy if they point down. Either way provides good luck.
There is a tradition of presenting a horseshoe, either real or decorative, to newly married couples. This gift is to wish them luck and to protect their home. The legend behind this concerns a blacksmith who later became Archbishop of Canterbury. St. Dunstan was working one day when a cloaked figure arrived and asked the smith if he would reshoe him, rather than his horse. St. Dunstan knew Satan had cloven heels that needed shoes. Obviously, his strange visitor had to be Satan. He tortured Satan with a red-hot poker until he agreed never to enter a house that displayed a horseshoe.18
Clarice’s Experience
Clarice is my cousin’s best friend. They went to school together, and both later became nurses. Clarice wanted to marry and settle down, but that was unimportant to my cousin, Fiona. As often happens in these cases, Fiona found her life partner well before Clarice. Before the wedding, Fiona used to joke that she’d throw her wedding bouquet to Clarice. Clarice was appalled.
“Don’t do that,” she said. “People will think I’m desperate.”
At the wedding, when it was time to throw the bouquet, Fiona wanted to toss the bouquet to Clarice, but in her excitement couldn’t see her. She threw the bouquet high in the air. As it came down, one of the young men at the reception flipped it up into the air again, and it landed in Clarice’s hands.
“That was a definite omen,” Clarice told me. “The bouquet wasn’t thrown in my direction, yet it ended up in my hands.”
Clarice took the bouquet home. For several months, she held it every day while thinking of her desire to meet the right man. In feng shui, dead flowers are considered negative. However, this did not apply in Clarice’s case, as the bouquet was her symbol of love and romance. Each time she held it, she was reminded of Fiona’s wedding, and the love the newly married couple shared.
Clarice met Tom at the wedding of another friend. She considers that appropriate, as she had been looking after Fiona’s bouquet for several months. Clarice did not catch the bouquet at the second wedding, but she did not need to. By the time it was tossed, she and Tom were falling in love.
“I’ve never believed in love at first sight,” she told me. “But it happens. It was as if Tom and I had known each other forever. I kept asking myself if it was the fact that we were at a wedding, or maybe the alcohol, but it was neither. We met and fell in love, all within minutes.”
Clarice still has Fiona’s wedding bouquet, as it will always be her symbol of love and romance.
14. Jack Tresidder, Dictionary of Symbols (San Francisco, CA, Chronicle Books, 1998), 131.
15. Megan Tresidder, The Language of Love (London, UK: Duncan Baird Publishers, 2004), 151.
16 Carole Porter, Knock on Wood and Other Superstitions (New York, NY, Sammis Books, 1983), 103.
17. Donald E. Dossey, Holiday Folklore, Phobias and Fun (Los Angeles, CA: Outcomes Unlimited Press, Inc., 1992), 193.
18. Peter Bently, The Book of Love Symbols (San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books, 1995), 37.