Will you be following wedding tradition?

Your wedding day will be one of the most special days of your life. This is the journey you are about take together as a couple and therefore a lot of your time now will no doubt be spent creating Pinterest boards & day dreaming of churches, invites, wedding dresses, flowers and guest lists, or will it?

Planning a wedding takes time and research which is why they are generally planned so far in advance. On the other hand you can visit the register office, give notice and be married within 30 days!

Times have changed and there are so many choices now for couples. I love a good wedding fayre personally. It’s a really good informal setting for couples to gather ideas & inspiration. Suppliers in the industry are always ready to help you by answering any questions you may have and through simply chatting about your ideas and plans, you will always pick up some really good nuggets of information that you may not have even thought of or considered.

I remember one of the first wedding events I exhibited at. I was talking to a bride about her plans. At that point, the couple were not sure what they wanted, or which venues they wanted to look at. However, they were clear on what they didn’t want…and that was a traditional wedding.

It all starts with the proposal, and the engagement ring. The engagement ring represents a formal agreement to future marriage. It is worn on the 4th finger of the left hand. Why? Because it was once thought that a vein in that particular finger led directly to the heart.

Wearing an engagement and wedding ring is still a very strong tradition which is used today. Unless of course you are Carrie Bradshaw from Sex And The City – when boyfriend Aiden proposed, Carrie accepted and wore her engagement ring on a necklace around her neck. They split up and Carrie eventually married her true love ‘Big’. Carrie still didn’t have or wear an engagement ring. They just went out and got married at City Hall.

The list of wedding venues now are endless! You can literally get married anywhere you choose. Tradition is church and then reception. However, now, anything goes. This can be church, register office, the ceremony and reception in a city centre hotel, a barn wedding or a field with tepees and a humanist ceremony. The choice is yours. Things to consider when looking at venues is budget and how many people are you going to invite? With this in mind, some venues have different function rooms due to capacity.

Wherever you choose to marry, remember that – following tradition – bride and groom are not to spend the night before together. Why? This has come from way back when ‘arranged marriages’ were the norm. The groom was not to see the bride at all before the wedding and this was to ensure that the marriage would go ahead regardless of the bride-to-be appearance or identity!

Next up is ‘The Dress’. Where did the white wedding dress come from? Queen Victoria started the white wedding dress trend back in 1840. “Victoria chose to wear white mostly because it was the perfect colour to highlight the delicate lace”. Until that point, most brides wore their best dress, which was normally a bright colourful dress which would be worn again for special occasions. If a bride was fortunate enough to wear white, this was an indicator of wealth with the understanding that the brides family could afford to have it cleaned.

In the modern world we now have a huge selection of bridal designs. We have endless options of colours with very few wedding dresses being white. Most wedding dresses are in fact ivory as it is very flattering and looks clean and crisp on photographs. If you wish to be more alternative, there are bridal boutiques who specialise in certain different styles such as vintage or boho. As a bride, I would always suggest researching bridal boutiques and looking at their designs to find which ones appeal to you most.

Another tradition which is still favoured by many brides today, is the wearing of a garter. This came about in the dark ages when guests used to try to grab a piece of the bride’s dress – it was considered good luck. This could sometimes get quite out of hand with the bride’s wedding dress often being ripped and torn. It was later introduced that a piece of the bridal dress was to be tossed into the crowd. The tradition of the garter was born. If a garter toss is something you would want to incorporate into your wedding, I would suggest buying two. One can be tossed into the crowd, the other to be a sexy addition to your wedding night and can be kept as a keepsake.

• According to English folklore, Saturday is the unluckiest day to get married. Nowadays, it is the most popular and therefore the most expensive!
• Rain on your wedding day is good luck. It signifies your marriage will last. A knot that becomes wet is extremely hard to untie, therefore when you tie the knot on a rainy day, your marriage is supposedly just as hard to unravel.
• Brides carrying or wearing ‘something old’ on their wedding day is to symbolise continuity with the past.
• ‘Something new’ offers optimism for the future for the happy couple as they start a future together.
• The term ‘something borrowed’ from the rhyme is to bring the newly married couple good luck. Borrowing something from a happily married friend or relative will ensure their good fortune rubs off.
• Brides having ‘something blue’ is to symbolise purity, fidelity and love.
• Ancient Greeks and Romans thought a Bride wearing a veil protected her from evil spirits.
• Ever wondered why the bride always stands to the groom’s left? This was due to bygone days when the groom needed his right hand free to fight off other suitors!
• Back in the day when brides married, they essentially went from being part of the parents family to becoming their now husband’s property, and therefore had to change their surname!
• The throwing of the bride’s bouquet was to deter guests and distract them so the bride could then sneak to the bridal chamber with her new husband! It is said that the lucky lady who caught the bouquet would be the next to be married.
• The same theory is said for the bridal garter. The husband is to remove the garter and throw to the men. The lucky man catching the garter would be next in line.
• A tiered wedding cake originally came from a game where the bride and groom attempted to kiss over an even higher cake without knocking it over.