Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Wedding Traditions

Episode Date: October 25, 2021

Weddings are full of traditions. Almost every aspect of a traditional western wedding involves customs that may date back hundreds or thousands of years. However, most people have no idea where these customs or traditions come from. They simply do them because that’s what you do when you have a wedding. Learn more about wedding traditions and learn where they came from, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Weddings are full of traditions. Almost every aspect of a traditional Western wedding involves customs that may date back hundreds or even thousands of years. However, most people have no idea where these customs or traditions come from. They simply do them because that's what you do when you have a wedding. Learn more about wedding traditions and their origins on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Do you ever climb into bed ready to sleep only to have your mind start racing the moment your head hits the pillow? Thoughts bouncing around, replaying the day, or jumping ahead to tomorrow?

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Episodes are every Monday and Thursday. Weddings are probably the events we celebrate that have the most traditions and the oldest traditions. Today's modern weddings are really just a mash-up of traditions that were created at different periods throughout history. We might as well jump right into our discussion of tying the knot by understanding the origin of the phrase, tying the knot. The best that we can tell, the phrase comes from a Celtic tradition called hand fasting. The bride and the groom would literally have a knot tied around them why they were holding hands. The symbolism of a knot implies a bond or a union. In fact, up until 1939, hand fasting was considered a legal form of marriage in Scotland. Before you have a wedding,

of course, you need to have an engagement. Traditionally, engagements had nothing to do with the bride and a groom and everything to do with their two families. Marriages were arranged, and there were more transactions between families than a union of two people. As we'll see, many wedding traditions harken back to the days of arranged marriages. The tradition of an engagement ring is a surprisingly modern one. Prior to the 1930s, less than a century ago, engagement rings really weren't a thing. The idea of engagement rings, specifically diamond rings, was a marketing creation of the De Beers diamond cartel. They had a near-monopoly on the world's supply of diamonds, and they wanted to increase demand for their product. So they began a campaign to promote diamond engagement rings,

and needless to say, it was very successful. Prior to Debeers, engagement rings were limited to only the very wealthy and the nobility. Wedding rings, on the other hand, have a very ancient tradition. They date back to ancient Greece and Rome. Rings would normally have been made out of iron or some other simple material, but might have been gold if you were in the upper class. The ring finger was thought to have a direct connection to the heart, which was why it was used. There are two traditions that have a similar origin, the tradition of the groom not seeing the bride before the wedding, and the tradition of the bridal veil, both hearken back to the days of arranged marriages. It really didn't matter what the bride or groom looked like because it wasn't relevant to the marriage.

The first opportunity a groom would often have to look upon a bride was once the marriage ceremony was complete. The groom could then lift the veil and see exactly who they were going to be spending the rest of their life with. The tradition of the father giving away the bride, again, dates back to arranged marriages. The transfer of a bride from a father to her husband was literally considered a transfer of property. This was the case in ancient Rome and in much of medieval Europe. In fact, the origin of the word wed, as in wedding, has an Anglo-Saxon root and implies a contractual agreement. The use of a bridal bouquet goes all the way back to ancient Rome. A bundle of flowers or herbs would be carried as it was thought to ward off evil spirits.

Later during the medieval period, it was used to ward off the plague. Tossing the bouquet comes from the fact that it was good luck to touch the bride on her wedding day. People would often want to take a souvenir, usually a piece of her dress for good luck. Throwing the bouquet was away for the bride to distract the guests as she went to the bridal chamber. Likewise, the groom would come out afterwards and throw the garter into the crowd as evidence that the marriage was consummated. Another tradition that goes back to ancient times is the custom of bridesmaids and groomsmen. They actually have slightly different origins. Bridesmaids all dress alike because they were originally supposed to confuse the evil spirits that would target the bride.

Originally, the goal wasn't for the bridesmaids to look alike necessarily, but to dress just like the bride. Another reason had to do with the physical protection of the bride. If a bride had to travel to another village, identically dressed bridesmaids could protect the bride against bandits. The maid of honor is traditionally an unmarried woman who would assist the bride on her wedding day to get dressed and prepare for the wedding. Technically, if the person in this role is married,

then she would be the matron of honor and not the maid of honor. Groomsmen have a very different story. While the Romans did have a tradition of having male witnesses, along with female ones, to vex evil spirits, Later peoples often had traditions of kidnapping the bride instead of using an arranged marriage. The groomsman would literally have been men who assisted the groom in kidnapping the bride. Likewise, the best man wasn't necessarily a good friend of the groom. He was literally the best man he could find, the strongest or the best fighter who could assist in the kidnapping.

On a similar note, the concept of a honeymoon may have first come about from a kidnapped bride and groom going into a period of hiding, while a family of the bride was looking for them. Its modern manifestation was created in early 19th century Britain. A newlywood couple would often go on a bridal tour after a wedding. This would have been a tour of visiting relatives from both families who weren't able to attend the ceremony. The word honeymoon referred to the month after a wedding, a-k.a. a moon, where the couple was still in love.

The wedding cake has a surprisingly ancient history. The ancient Romans would create small cakes out of wheat or barley, and then would break them over the head of the bride or throw them at the bride for good luck. In the Middle Ages, something called a bride's pie would often be served. The bride's pie was more of a meal and not really dessert. A glass ring would sometimes be put in the pie, and the person who got it would be considered the next person to get married. It was their equivalent of throwing the bouquet. The modern wedding cake, which is a dessert cake with white icing, came from the wedding of Queen Victoria in 1840.

The white frosting became known as royal frosting. Speaking of Queen Victoria, there is another tradition we can attribute directly to her, the white wedding dress. Prior to Victoria's wedding, there were white wedding dresses, but there was nothing special about them. When you got married, you just wore a nice dress. The color white wasn't associated with virginity or purity. In fact, if there was a color that was associated with purity, it was blue, not white. That is why you so often see classical paintings of the Virgin Mary wearing blue. where the blue part of something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue comes from.

The association of white with purity for weddings is a relatively modern invention that was used to justify white dresses. White wedding dresses with lace and a long train became a huge fashion trend after Victoria's wedding, and it's become so entrenched that today most people have no idea that this is where it started. There are a couple other wedding traditions that can be traced directly to another 19th century British royal wedding. In 1858, Queen Victoria's oldest child, Princess Victoria Adelaide Mary Louise, got married to Frederick Wilhelm I, 4th, the future king of Prussia. This wedding was notable for several things. For starters, it was the first known time that the bride marched down the aisle to music. The second notable thing was the music she

chose for marching down the aisle. You just might recognize it. The piece is commonly known as here comes the bride or the bridal chorus. It was actually written by Ricard Wagner, and it comes from an 1850 opera called Lowengrin. The opera and the music were never written for weddings and mind. The final thing that Princess Victoria did was select the music to be played during her recessional, and you're probably also familiar with that. This piece was written by Felix Mendelsohn in 1842, known as the Wedding March. It actually was written for weddings. It was used before the wedding of Princess Victoria, but she was the one who solidified its popularity. One tradition which has changed in recent years is throwing rice at the bride and

groom when they leave. Rice is a symbol of fertility and prosperity, and it's also easy and cheap to throw handfuls of it. The tradition goes back to ancient Celtic peoples who would throw other types of grains such as rye and millet at the couple. Recently, people have stopped throwing rice because of fears that it would kill birds if they would eat it. This is emphatically not true, and it's just an urban myth. No ornithologist has ever seen a bird die from eating rice. And if it was the case, there wouldn't be any birds in rice growing areas. Tests done have shown that rice expands by 33% when soaked in water. And bird seed can expand by 40%. Tests have been conducted where birds have been fed a diet of nothing but rice, and none of them

died. People have replaced rice with other alternatives like rose petals or leaves, but they really aren't any more environmentally friendly than a handful of rice. It is really amazing how many traditions are involved in wedding ceremonies and how far back in time they go. Most of them now bear no resemblance to what they were originally intended for, yet people keep doing them simply because it's a tradition. The associate producers of Everything Everywhere Daily are Peter Bennett and Thor Thompson. If you'd like to support the show, please join the list of patrons over at patreon.com. And also remember, if you leave a review or send me a question, you two can have it read on the show.