DIVINE DÉCOR

Deck Out Your Day

You want your wedding to look lovely. Why not have it look lucky, too? Every opportunity for design or décor is a chance to work in a symbol that’s understood to be auspicious, either universally or personally. Pick a color palette that invites joy, or choose hues that are significant for you as a couple—black, blue, and silver may recall the night sky on the camping trip during which you got engaged. Select a meaningful motif for your paper goods, or mail invitations with postage stamps showcasing a flower in your bouquet or picturing Billie Holiday, whose recording of “Come Rain or Come Shine” is your first dance song. Whatever your style, there’s a symbol for you.

COLOR THEORY

Choosing a palette for your day ties the look together—and can also change its mood, according to feng shui (see this page). To customize your colors, consult a feng-shui website, book, or practitioner to find out what shades work best with your birth element (the material—wood, fire, earth, metal, or water—associated with your Chinese horoscope). For a taste, read through the feng-shui color primer below. (For the significance of hues in clothing specifically, see this page.)

BLACK AND WHITE When paired, these represent yin and yang, or female and male energies, and are therefore auspicious wedding colors. Also lucky together are black and green, which promote wealth and longevity, and black and purple, which bring prosperity and success.

BLUE AND GREEN Both of these seaside shades are considered calming, and green is also thought to inspire growth.

METALLICS Silver, gold, rose-gold, copper, brass, or pewter add formality and prosperity to a celebration because they look like precious metals. Plus, they are believed to promote creativity, fertility, and healing.

ORANGE Warming and energetic, orange is also the color of the marigolds used to make celebratory garlands in India, where saffron is an auspicious hue.

PURPLE When paired with white, purple brings harmony, and when matched with black, success.

RED The color of fire and lifeblood, red is energetic and bold. It represents male yang energy, and benefits from being balanced with its yin counterpart, pink.

YELLOW A color that brightens, yellow adds energy to your day. And yellow and white together symbolize heaven and earth.

FIRST MATES

If you like the idea of a mascot, find your wedding’s spirit animal, whether it’s a species that mates for life or part of a specific cultural tradition.

ALBATROSSES These big birds dance to show their love for each other, and are together until death do they part. Kind of like the two of you.

BALD EAGLES Independent, majestic, and patriotic, the national mascots of the United States migrate separately, but come together year after year.

BARN OWLS Symbols of wisdom, snowy-white barn owls are emblems of monogamy, too.

BEAVERS These industrious little fur balls are very homey, constructing dams and raising families in perfect harmony after pairing up for life.

BUTTERFLIES In China, butterflies are associated with longevity, because the Mandarin word for butterfly, hu-tieh, includes the word tieh, which means “seventy years.” They’re also symbols of love, as a legend about the ancient sage Zhuangzi holds that he chased a butterfly into a garden where he spotted a beautiful young woman and fell in love with her. In Japan, butterflies are said to represent the departed souls of beloved people. And for many cultures, butterflies signal transformation, the human soul, and our ability to change, because they begin as humble caterpillars.

CRANES These elegant birds are auspicious in Japan, where they’re embroidered onto bridal kimonos, because they’re said to live for a thousand years. Some couples fold senbazuru, one thousand origami cranes, with which to decorate their wedding. And Japanese fathers traditionally give sets of one thousand cranes to their daughters to use as décor on the big day. Today they’re available from origami artists on handicraft sites such as Etsy.

DRAGONS In China, the dragon and the phoenix represent a married couple: the phoenix is the strongest symbol of female yin energy, and the dragon represents the male energy, yang.

DUCKS These monogamous fowl are a beloved nuptial symbol in Korea, where a pair of wooden “wedding ducks” were traditionally displayed on a table during ceremonies and are still a popular gift for newlyweds. Now they’re mass-produced, but in the past they were carved by a woodworker blessed with the “five fortunes”: wealth, health, a good wife, no divorced relatives, and multiple sons.

FRENCH ANGELFISH These sweet sea creatures swim side by side all their lives, and spin around each other in a love dance called “carouseling.”

GIBBONS They may be cheeky monkeys, but they’re also reliable partners for life.

HENS Along with “wedding ducks,” a Korean nuptial table will hold figures of a hen and a rooster, symbolizing the bride and groom, in front of a screen of peonies.

LOVEBIRDS That name speaks for itself!

ORCAS Devoted mates until the end, black-and-white killer whales are also formally dressed in nature’s tuxedo.

OTTERS These water mammals hold hands in their sleep so as not to float apart in the stream.

PENGUINS Monogamous during breeding season, many penguin pairs return to each other year after year. Plus, they’re black-tie-ready.

PHOENIXES A bridal emblem in China, phoenixes are also beloved because of the Greek myth that they rise from the ashes, turning tragedy into triumph.

PRAIRIE VOLES These mammals don’t just huddle together through long, Midwestern winters; they remain together until death do they part.

RED FOXES Even if you’re not marrying a ginger, you’ve got to admire these foxy fauna, who mate for life.

SEAHORSES These underwater wonders wrap their tails around each other to stay close in the current.

SWANS Largely monogamous, swans are also beautiful and, when they swim up to each other, can form a heart shape with their long necks.

TURTLE DOVES It’s hard to find a more classic symbol of marriage than these birds who bill and coo their whole lives long.

WOLVES Mates for life, they howl at the moon together. Forever.

NATURAL WONDERS

No one’s a better decorator than Mother Nature. Several of her greatest hits have become meaningful symbols that could also be used to dress up your day.

CLOVERS Four-leaf clovers are lucky to the Irish, partly because they’re rare (with shamrocks, the three-leaf variety, being easier to find) and because the leaves resemble hearts. Each one of the four leaves also represents a blessing: some say respect, wealth, love, and health, while others ascribe them to hope, faith, love, and luck. (For more symbolic plants, see this page.)

FIRE More than a few venues prohibit open flames for liability reasons (buzzkills!). If yours doesn’t, consider candlelight, fireworks, sparklers, or a post-wedding bonfire for roasting s’mores. Not only does firelight symbolize warmth, hope, and divinity (Hindus call Agni, the fire god, “The Radiant One”), but also there’s the cross-cultural idea of an eternal flame. This may have originated with the always-burning hearth at the Oracle of Delphi, but can just as easily represent the love burning in your hearts. For Zoroastrians, a physical flame represents the spiritual flame, mainyu athra, within each of us. In Japan, newlyweds may stop by every table at the reception to greet guests and light a candle, spreading a warm glow to the group.

MOONLIGHT Another natural phenomenon that is considered lucky (see this page), the moon is also associated with phrases such as being so in love you’re “over the moon,” or admiring someone so much you think they “hung the moon.” A crescent moon had special significance in ancient Egypt, where it was linked with Isis, the mother goddess, and was the sign of the Ottoman Empire, where it became an emblem atop many mosques. The center of a Navajo squash blossom necklace is the naja, an inverted crescent pendant that is a fertility symbol.

RAIN If you’re getting married in a location where wet weather is likely (many gorgeous venues are significantly cheaper in the rainy off-season), embrace the idea of rain as a symbol of washing away the past, showering you with luck, fertility, and blessings from above, and strengthening your union because a wet knot is harder to untie. Adopt the umbrella, a common nuptial image, as your own. In Finland, through much of the twentieth century an escort held one over the bride’s head as she went door to door collecting her dowry, making it a popular motif for Finnish weddings today (see this page); in Tibet, Buddhists honor the White Umbrella Goddess as a sign of protection; in New Orleans, parasols make a joyous appearance during a second line parade (see this page).

STARS Whether paired with a moon or on their own, these sparkling fireballs are a bright reminder of the stars in your eyes or a love story written in the stars. The North Star is a symbol of divine guidance that’s lucky for sailors, and the starry sky has been said to represent all the children of Abraham.

SUN The sun and the direction it rises from are eloquent metaphors for a new beginning. This is why Navajo weddings take place facing east, the compass point associated with the future, so that the couple are looking toward their new life together.

TREES Another natural symbol that’s universally understood as auspicious is the tree of life. It calls to mind a family tree, rooted in the past but spreading toward the future and up to the heavens. The Koran refers to the Tree of Immortality, and in the Bahá’í text The Manifestation of God, it is written “ye were all gathered in My presence beneath the shade of the tree of life, which is planted in the all-glorious paradise.” Virtually every indigenous group in the Americas, from the Aztecs to the Zunis, holds trees sacred.

All over the world, different cultures find specific types of trees auspicious: Hindus favor a banyan while Buddhists believe that the Buddha was born under a pipal tree, making it lucky. Orthodox Christians view cypress trees as representations of souls ascending to heaven and plant them to mark sacred sites. Norse mythology refers to the Yggdrasil, or “world tree,” which may be a yew, an ash, or the oak tree sacred to the god Thor. And fruiting trees are a global hallmark of fertility.

Dutch marriage traditions include the wedding wish tree: in the Netherlands, a potted tree is displayed at the reception and guests are given leaf-shaped tags on which to write messages to the newlyweds; then they attach their good wishes to the branches with ribbons. Dutch couples also sit under a canopy made of evergreens prior to the wedding as a sign of everlasting love.

THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME

Man-made symbols have also been imbued with meaning throughout the ages and across cultures. One of the shapes below would add style and substance to your décor.

ADINKRA You don’t have to be West African to love the adinkra symbols found on handprinted cloth. Each one is linked to a proverb or phrase, such as a heart-shaped icon called Onyankopon adom nti biribiara beye yie, or “By God’s grace, all will be well,” and Nyame Dua, a cloverlike design of four hearts signifying the “Tree of God,” which invites divine protection. Other popular adinkra for weddings include Osram ne Nsoromma, or “the moon and the star,” which indicates love and loyalty, and Odo nyera fie kwan, or “love never loses its way home.”

BRAIDS This profound design—which can appear anywhere from silk cords to decorative bread—is made of two intertwined strands (or, in some cases, three, which is perfect if one of you has a child). Braided hair has significance of its own (see this page).

DOUBLE HAPPINESS In China, wedding guests don’t sign a guest book but instead write their names on a cloth bearing a Double Happiness symbol, which the couple can hang in their home after the ceremony. According to legend, the motif, which shows the character for happy, repeated and linked, was developed by two young lovers.

HEARTS Inspired by the actual shape of the human organ, the heart is understood everywhere as a herald of love, perhaps because the ancient Greeks imagined the soul lived within the heart. It is, after all, what flutters when you feel a strong emotion.

HORSESHOES English brides may walk down the aisle carrying decorative horseshoes, which have been considered lucky since the ancient Celts believed iron could scare away goblins. Horseshoes engraved with the couple’s names are now a common gift the bride can carry on the day and display at home after the event. A variant of this tradition in the American South has a small child handing the bride a decorated horseshoe as she walks back up the aisle.

INFINITY Resembling the lucky number 8 on its side (see this page), this symbol is elegant and meaningful, as it has no beginning and no end.

KNOTS There’s a reason you’re said to be tying one on your wedding day—it binds two different strands together. Hindus and Buddhists especially prize the mystical knot, which has eight loops, represents endless love, and happens to resemble the Celtic love knot.

MONOGRAMS A crest incorporating your initials is an elegant touch. But if you’re changing your name, don’t use your new, shared last initial until after the ceremony, when it actually is your initial, sacramentally speaking. To slap that letter onto invitations or programs would invite bad juju. Using it as a cake topper at the reception, though, would be fine. What if you happen to have the same last initial? An English proverb dating back to the mid-1800s states “to change the name but not the letter is to change for the worse and not the better.” Ignore it. It's a good omen according to your own, personal folklore.

WHEEL OF LIFE A potent icon in Buddhism, this circle has no beginning and no end.

BAD LUCK BUSTERS

They say an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. And when it comes to bad luck, believe it. Luckily, you’ve got history on your side to fight any negativity that may be present at your wedding. Centuries of folk wisdom have developed universally agreed upon symbols that repel “the evil eye.” In much of the Mediterranean, including Greece and Turkey, that’s the color blue or an image of an eye itself—charms that are also referred to as “evil eyes.” In Italy, Israel, and other countries, the color red fights the evil eye. Cornuti, red charms shaped like the Devil’s horn, or like a hand making a horn shape with the pointer and pinkie fingers, are popular amulets in southern Italy. Mirrors deflect the evil eye back at its giver—and anything that reflects light, like sequins, counts, too.

Another lovely misfortune-stopper is an image of an open, five-fingered palm, known as the hamsa, the Arabic word for five. Popular in the Middle East, it is also called the Hand of Miriam, for Moses's sister, the Hand of Mary, and the Hand of Fatima, after the daughter of the Prophet Mohammed. It tells bad luck to “talk to the hand,” and has been doing so since ancient Mesopotamia, where the symbol of divine protection was associated with the goddess Ishtar. (Hands in general make an apt wedding motif, as the bride is seen as giving her hand in marriage.) And, don’t forget, tassels also have the power to swish away the evil eye.