IT’S A DATE

When and Where to Wed

A whole host of cultural considerations can bring good fortune to the when and where of your wedding. If you’re still working out these specifics, the traditions and beliefs listed in this chapter may offer some inspiration. But here’s a little practical magic to help you choose a day that’s auspicious without considering any divination: look to a date that has significance for you two. You might choose to marry on the anniversary of a couple whose relationship you admire, the date you met, or you could get creative, say, picking the 25th because both of your ancestors immigrated to the country in 1925, setting in motion a course of events that led to you finding each other. Part of the trick to being lucky is celebrating luck when you see it.

A RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE

If you’re having a religious ceremony, you probably already know whether your house of worship prohibits weddings during certain times of the year. (Muslims aren’t allowed to marry during Ramadan nor Orthodox Christians during Lent, and some Jews avoid marrying between the 17th of Tammuz and the 9th of Av, a period of mourning for the destruction of the Temple, or the Counting of the Omer between Passover and Shavuot.) Otherwise, the choice is yours.

SEASON'S GREETINGS

In terms of seasons, winter weddings have a lucky advantage because a snowy wedding day is seen as a sign of fertility and abundance. Winter also brings holiday wreaths whose circular shape representing endless love, and evergreen boughs, which are symbols of eternity because they’re green all year long. Spring flowers can add luck to your bouquet, cake, or invitations—especially lily of the valley, which symbolizes happiness. (For more auspicious floral varieties, see this page.) Ladybugs, a sweet sign of summer, are considered lucky, both because they eat crop-destroying pests such as aphids, thus helping farmers with the harvest, and because they’re associated with the Virgin Mary by Catholics who call the seven spots on a ladybug’s back “the seven sorrows of Mary,” to honor her suffering during Christ’s Passion. If you plan to have children, wheat, pomegranates, and nuts are autumnal symbols associated with fertility because they are examples of a bountiful harvest. (For more food that signifies abundance, see this page.)

MONTH BY MONTH

Every month has its pluses and minuses when it comes to wedding folklore, and they vary from culture to culture. For example, according to Polish custom, it’s auspicious to get married in months that contain the letter r in the name, which would be March (marzec), June (czerwiec), August (sierpień), September (wrzesień), October (październik), and December (grudzień). For more inspiration, let’s break down the calendar.

JANUARY was the time to marry according to the ancient Greeks who called it Gamelion, or “wedding month,” as it was devoted to Hera, the goddess of nuptials. (Gamelion ran from what is now December 15 to January 15.) Plus there’s a lot to be said for celebrating a new beginning with a new year; a rhyme from the 1920 book Kentucky Superstitions states, “Married when the year is new, you will always be loving, kind, and true.”

FEBRUARY means Valentine’s Day, which adds even more romance to the occasion, as well as Chinese New Year, a lucky time to wed in Asian cultures (though it’s occasionally in late January). It’s also associated with the month of Adar on the lunar calendar, a fortunate time of year for Jews, as it’s when the holiday of Purim is celebrated. Along with the 14th, another popular date to get married is February 29, Leap Day, which comes along only every four years. In Ireland, it was traditionally seen as a day on which women can propose to men, per an agreement between St. Brigid and St. Patrick, according to legend. But it’s also beloved by couples who want a unique anniversary and a chance to delay any “seven-year itch” by twenty-one years. Also in Ireland, Shrovetide, the period between Epiphany (January 6th) and Lent, which begins on Ash Wednesday, was considered the most fortunate time to get married, since the Church frowned on weddings during Lent. Shrove Tuesday, the last chance to make it official before Lent, became the luckiest date of all. (Depending on the date of Easter, Shrove Tuesday may be in March.)

MARCH is ideal according to another rhyme from Kentucky Superstitions, which promises that anyone who weds then gets a “splendid catch.” And if you envision a life of happy travels together, you’ll love the old English rhyme from Every Woman’s Encyclopaedia, published in 1910–12: “Married when March winds shrill and roar / Your home will lie on a distant shore.”

APRIL makes for a memorable date if you lean into the custom of April Fools’ Day, celebrating your status as fools for love and incorporating fish symbols in your décor. In France April 1st is called poisson d’avril, in Italy, where it’s pesce d’aprile, kids tape paper fish to the backs of people they have tricked. Late April (or sometimes early May) brings the spring festival celebrated by Hindus and Jains, which is called Akshaya Tritiya, “the third day of unending prosperity”—always a good thing.

MAY is usually the month in which Pentecost, the holiday that commemorates the appearance of the Holy Spirit to the Apostles, occurs. Also known as Whitsunday, the celebration, on the seventh Sunday after Easter, is considered a lucky day to wed in Sweden, where churches are decorated in red to represent the Holy Spirit. But many European cultures once warned against marrying in May, lest you be driven mad by spring fever and make a poor decision. On May 1, ancient Romans celebrated Floralia, a festival for the goddess of flowers, and Celtic pagans observed Beltane, a fertility festival halfway between the spring equinox and the summer solstice. The Celts danced around a maypole topped with a floral “May wreath,” versions of which would be lovely in flower girls’ hair or on chair backs. You could also bring back the nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century American custom of May baskets—little baskets of flowers children would leave on neighbors’ doorsteps on May 1—by giving them as favors.

JUNE has been synonymous with weddings since ancient Rome; the month was named for Juno, the Roman goddess of marriage. The Druids considered the midsummer solstice—the day with the most sunlight each year, falling between June 19 and 25—the wedding of heaven and earth. Today, in countries from Sweden to Brazil, midsummer brings bonfire festivals to drive off evil spirits and celebrate the sun’s transit. The occasion is also associated with fertility—consider the Swedish saying, “midsummer’s night isn’t long but it sets many cradles rocking.”

JULY and AUGUST are the most popular months for Americans to marry, and each year one or the other contains one of the luckiest days to wed in the Jewish calendar, Tu B’Av. According to Talmudic lore, the 15th day of Av was the beginning of the grape harvest, when single women, dressed in white, would pray and dance in the fields, and men would join them in search of worthy wives. Today, in Israel, it’s a Valentine’s Day–like celebration of romance. As the eighth month, August is the good-luck jackpot as far as many Asian cultures are concerned (see this page); August 8th would be doubly lucky. But in Taiwan, the first fifteen days of the seventh lunar month (which roughly includes the second half of August and first half of September) are called Ghost Month, when restless souls return to earth, making celebrations inappropriate.

SEPTEMBER, the ninth month, is fortunate in Chinese culture, as the word for nine (gáu in Cantonese) is a homonym for “enduring.” And the old English verse in Every Woman’s Encyclopaedia promises, “Marry in September’s shine / Your living will be fair and fine.”

OCTOBER means beautiful weather and foliage in much of the world, but has a mixed reputation, as per the same English rhyme that states, “If in October you do marry / Love will come but riches tarry.” (But who needs money when you’ve got each other?) Kabbalists find the four days between Yom Kippur and Sukkot (which may stretch into November) auspicious because they are associated with the four letters of the Tetragrammaton, which spell God’s name in Hebrew. And there is something numerically satisfying about the idea that the tenth month of the year will ensure your marriage is a perfect 10.

NOVEMBER and DECEMBER generally bring risky weather. But the bad climate is associated with good luck in that same English rhyme, which promises, “If you wed in bleak November / Only joy will come, remember” and “When December’s snows fall fast / Marry, and true love will last.” Jews consider the month of Kislev, which corresponds with the second half of November and first half of December, extremely auspicious because it ends with Hanukkah, the miraculous Festival of Lights. Plus, the holidays are a good time to remember what you’re thankful for—like true love.

MOON GAZING

Instead of considering the name at the top of the calendar page, you might look to the phases of the moon. Because the Jewish calendar is a lunar one, Jews consider the new moon, Rosh Chodesh (“the head of the month”), a blessed time that is ideal for new beginnings—giving you twelve lucky dates to choose from, or thirteen in a Jewish calendar leap year. The ancient Greeks preferred to wed during a waxing moon (rather than a waning one) so that the couple’s joy and prosperity would continue to grow. Similarly, in Holland and other countries, it’s believed that the best time to marry is when the tide is rising, as the couple’s fortunes will keep rising as well—something to keep in mind especially if you’re having a seaside wedding. Whatever the phase of the moon during your wedding, it’s a beautiful motif to use, since you’re over the moon for each other. And if you are making it official during the second-in-one-month full moon known as blue, which takes place every three years or so, you can play up the fact that yours is a love that happens once in a blue moon.

IT’S YOUR LUCKY DAY

Although most weddings nowadays happen on weekends, that wasn’t always the case—and Saturday isn’t the luckiest day of the week to get married, folklorically speaking. In fact, it’s the opposite according to this old English rhyme in Every Woman’s Encyclopaedia: “Monday for wealth, Tuesday for health, Wednesday the best day of all, Thursday for losses, Friday for crosses, and Saturday no luck at all.” (Sunday is not mentioned at all because it was considered a day for churchgoing, not wedding parties.)

In Judaism, Tuesday is considered auspicious for weddings because twice in the book of Genesis it is written that on the third day after Creation (that’s right, a Tuesday), God looked around and “saw that it was good.” On the other hand, Greeks consider Tuesdays unlucky, because Constantinople fell on a Tuesday—and Tuesday the 13th is the unluckiest of them all (see this page).

An Italian proverb mandates that you shouldn’t marry, travel, or begin a project on a Tuesday or a Friday. It doesn’t go into why Tuesdays are bad, but the day Jesus died was a Friday.

Each day in rokuyo, the ancient Japanese six-day week, is associated with good or bad luck, with the day taian, which means “great peace” being the best for weddings, and the day tomobiki, or “pulling friends,” the second best, except at the unlucky hour of noon, so the happy couple can draw their friends into the joy of their love. Today, Japan uses a seven-day week, but many calendars still include notations about rokuyo.

On a practical note, if you’re looking to trim your wedding budget, a midweek day might be your lucky break—vendors and venues often discount their weekend rates by up to 20 percent.

BY THE NUMBERS

The actual digits in your wedding date can maximize good luck and counteract any negativity your month or day might bring. You can decide any number is personally your lucky one (because it’s your birthday or was on the back of the football jersey you were wearing when you first met). But plenty of numbers hold the weight of centuries of cultural belief.

The number 2 signifies coupling up and living in harmony, which is why decorative scrolls and other accessories, such as candlesticks, are always displayed in pairs in Asia.

Meanwhile, in China, where the number 4 (sei) sounds like the Cantonese word for death, séi, buildings often skip the fourth floor.

Many East Asian cultures seek out the numbers 8 and 9 because of their homonyms—the word for eight (baat) sounds like “prosperity” (faat), and the word for nine (gáu), “long-lasting,” (gau) in Cantonese. The relationship is very similar in Mandarin, too. And your luck is doubled if you bring the month into it, as well, getting married on August 8 or September 9, for example. Another bonus to the number 8: it looks like an infinity symbol tipped upright. When dealing with digits, remember that there are two sides to every story. Indian numerologists think the number 8 brings bad luck, some say because it curves up and down, promising a karmic roller coaster.

Several cultures suffer from triskaidekaphobia, a fear of the number 13, perhaps because it’s the total of guests assembled at the Last Supper. But it’s a lucky number in Judaism because there are thirteen books in the Torah, and it’s the year when a child reaches the age of reason as a bar or bat mitzvah.

Another lucky number for Jews is 18. This is because every Hebrew letter has a numerical value; the letter heth is 8 and the letter yod is 10, and together they spell the word chai, or “life.” On a celebratory occasion, you may stuff a gift envelope with sums of money ending in $18, or, even better, $36—double chai—and so on. In a romantic coincidence, 18 is also what you get if you add the numerical value of the word ohavi, or “beloved,” spelled aleph (1), he (5), beth (2), and yod (10).

In Italy, 17 is unlucky because its Roman numeral depiction, XVII, can be scrambled into VIXI, the Latin word for “he lived,” which appears on many a Roman gravestone. And according to La Smorfia, the Neapolitan dream-interpretation code, the number 17 signals misfortune. In addition, several cultures, including the Italians, interpret the assertion in Genesis that the biblical flood Noah and his family and menagerie—but nobody else—survived began on “the seventeenth day of the second month” of the year Noah was 600 to mean that it started on February 17. Of course, since 17 is a two-digit number, you could look at it as the sum of its parts (1 + 7 = 8), and argue that bad luck in Italy adds up to good luck in China.

TIMING IS EVERYTHING

A long-held belief that exists in places from China to Chicago is that a couple should marry on the “upswing of the clock,” when the hour, minute, and second hand are moving upward. Technically, this could be any time between 6:31 and 11:59 a.m. or p.m. The custom has evolved into the belief that weddings should take place on the half hour so that at least one of the hands is moving upward, and funerals on the hour. The reasoning is the same as with the waxing moon (see this page)—moving upward on the clock is associated with increasing joy and prosperity rather than diminishing returns.

CALL IN THE EXPERTS

Couture isn’t only for fashion. Just as you can have a gown or tux custom-made for your wedding, you can have a date chosen to suit you to your best advantage. In several cultures, it is common practice for a couple to consult an astrologer or numerologist to pick the wedding date, or to make alterations if an already-chosen date is not ideal. For Hindu pairs, the date is selected according to Vedic astrology. The family astrologer consults the couple’s birth dates and looks at the calendar and the panchangram, or astrological almanac. If you’re short on family astrologers, or prefer a more DIY approach, search “muhurat calculator” online and type in your info; the website will spit out a muhurat, or auspicious time for your ceremony to start. Should your astrologer (or website) tell you you’re manglik, or born under an unlucky astrological circumstance for marriage, you can get rid of that bad mojo by having a pandit, a Hindu priest, marry you to a clay pot, a doll, or a tree in a ceremony called a kumbh vivah (literally a “wedding with a pot”). This way, all of the negative energy is used up in your first “marriage,” and your union to a human will be much happier.

East Asian culture gives similar analysis to a couple’s Chinese zodiac signs, the Chinese calendar, and the astrological implications of the projected wedding date and time. Most Chinese almanac calendars have all the helpful info in one spot: the Gregorian calendar, the Chinese calendar, feng shui (see this page), and astrological notations indicating whether or not a given day is good for “joyous events.” A number of Chinese calendar apps let you plug in your info and give you a list of auspicious dates, but for highly personal service, consult a feng-shui master or fortune-teller.

SET A SENSE OF PLACE

When to wed gets the vast majority of superstitious attention, with convenience and preference dictating where to get hitched. But that doesn’t have to be the case. Choose a place that has brought you luck: the congregation you grew up in, the college campus where you met, the restaurant where you went on your first date, or the country you visited on an important trip together. If guests get to see a place you love, chances are they’ll enjoy it, too—and feel lucky to be there.

If your locale has no particular significance, but you still want your venue to bring some good juju, turn to feng shui, the ancient Chinese belief system about spaces and the energy that flows through them (or gets blocked, causing all kinds of trouble). The term feng shui means “wind-water,” and the philosophy suggests looking to natural elements to promote positive energy. Water brings peace; a riverfront, beach, or lakeside location is great, but a fountain works, too (if you have any belligerent guests, seat them facing the water, as it will calm them). In Java, some Muslim couples choose to hold their weddings near water-spouting statues because the flowing water symbolizes the continuing love the parents of the couple have for their children.

Gardens are also calming and create serene ambience. If you’re getting married inside, you can rely on flowers or potted trees to bring harmony—just avoid thorny plants such as cacti. To double down on your luck, choose auspicious flora (see this page).

Indoors, bright light heralds a bright future; aim for natural or side lighting instead of the harsh, overhead kind. If your space is windowless, decorate with mirrors, silver, and crystal to reflect any light.

You can use feng shui to create a harmonious mood in any space as long as you balance all five elements: water, wood (plants count), fire (artificial light or candles work, too), earth (minerals such as quartz fit the bill), and metal (think planters, silverware, and other decorative details).

WHATEVER THE WEATHER

If there’s one universal fear for brides, it’s rain, especially rain ruining an outdoor wedding. Doing what you can to shift fate, and the weather, in your favor, can help ease your worries. First, accept Murphy’s Law, which states “Everything that can go wrong will.” Outsmart Murphy by planning for things to go wrong so that they go exactly right. If you’re having an outdoor wedding, make sure there’s an indoor option, or buy a bunch of golf umbrellas and put down a deposit on a tent—better to spend money on shelter you won’t end up needing than to be scrambling looking for options on a rainy wedding morning.

But how can you make things go right? In the American South, it’s believed that burying an unopened bottle of bourbon upside down at the site of a wedding will guarantee good weather on the day of. No one is exactly sure why—although one theory holds that it’s because everyone, including Mother Nature, loves bourbon, and the buried bottle is an offering that will please Her. Some couples do this exactly one month prior to the wedding, following the advice of this Southern ditty: “Bury a bottle of bourbon a month to the day in order to keep the rain away.” Others perform the interment the morning of the wedding (and have their photographer capture the moment). And while some pairs leave the bottle buried, many dig it up post-vows to toast the good weather with their attendants.

In Ireland, those planning a wedding have a direct line to the powers that be courtesy of the Child of Prague, a sixteenth-century statue of Jesus as a child found in the Carmelite Church of Our Lady Victorious in Prague. Pope Pius X established the Czech church as a shrine in 1913, and after that, replicas of the Child of Prague became popular in Ireland where good-wedding-weather seekers either bury the statue in their yards or display it in a window of their home, facing out to keep an eye on the elements. This tradition has been practiced by Irish presidents, James Bond–star Pierce Brosnan, and even resort owners who wanted good weather for the G8 Summit in 2013.

Similarly, Catholics in the northern United States and Canada may hang their rosary beads outdoors—on a lamppost, bush, or clothesline—either the night before or the morning of the wedding while praying for good weather.

If all else fails, adjust your attitude. Okay, so the Irish believe that rain on a wedding day foretells a tearful marriage…but maybe they’ll be tears of joy! And consider the Italian saying, “Sposa bagnata, sposa fortunata,” which promises that a drenched bride will be a lucky bride, and the French “Mariage pluvieux, mariage heureux,” which translates to “a rainy wedding means a happy marriage.” In many other European countries, rain is associated with a bountiful harvest and is thought to bless brides with fertility. Hindus, who tie thread around the bride and groom’s wrists during their ceremonies, say rain is fortunate because a wet knot is harder to untie. And American platitudes include the ideas that a wet day means good wishes are raining down on the couple and washing any troubles away, wedding day rain saves the bride from shedding any tears in her marriage, and drops hitting the bride’s veil are especially auspicious (a variation on that: if it rains on your attendants, one of them will marry soon).