About Wedding Traditions & Meanings

Showing posts with label wedding superstitions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wedding superstitions. Show all posts

Friday, April 21, 2023

Origins of Scottish wedding blackening tradition

The Scottish pre-wedding ritual known as blackening practiced in the Highlands, Islands and rural parts of Scotland is a strange wedding tradition. In my book, it is disgusting. The groom and/or bride are publicly taken out and drenched with a wide array of ingredients like slop, molasses, flour, feathers, as well as smelly disgusting things like fish guts and cow dung. I’ve read that this practice as it is done today is actually a corrupted variation of an old foot washing/hair washing tradition when the purpose of the blackening was to ensure the groom was dirty before the washing. How could today's blackening tradition be related to foot washing?

 

Scottish wedding blackening tradition


Blackening foot washing

I did some digging and found answers in “A Highland Wedding in Bygone Days” published in The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 13., 1888. The origins of the blackening tradition can be traced to a foot washing custom. In this case, the foot washing took place the night before the wedding and involved the groom. He and his friends gathered at his house using the guise of washing his feet for his wedding. Just like many bachelor parties today, a good deal of practical joking took place. One of these jokes included using soot, dirt, and other blackening agents mixed with the water and rubbed on the feet and even on the face of the bridegroom.

If the groom was fortunate enough to escape, his friends chased him down, and if he was lucky enough to find a good hiding place and eluded them, it was considered a good omen of future prosperity. When his friends gave up looking for him, he spent the rest of the night dancing.

blackened feet

Wedding shoes custom

On the Monday night after the first public announcement of their impending marriage the young couple secretly visited the shoemaker for the marriage shoes. The groom paid for both pairs. (In Greece it is still tradition for the groom to buy the bride’s shoes). They were delivered the morning of the wedding with money tucked inside, and if the groom delivered the shoes himself, he took the time to put them on her feet. However, it was perfectly acceptable for someone else to deliver the shoes. 


As for the money in the shoes, this differs from the longstanding tradition of placing a lucky Sixpence in the bride’s shoe because that is done by the bride’s father as a symbol of prosperity, love and unity. However, there is another Scottish wedding tradition in which the groom popped a silver coin under his left foot. I don’t have any more info on what money the groom slipped into her shoe or why, but if I learn more, I’ll be sure to update this section.

Money in wedding shoe

Other Scottish wedding superstitions

As long as we are looking back at the history of Scottish wedding traditions/superstitions, here are a few lesser-known wedding superstitions once practiced in Scotland:

  • Unlucky to get married in May

  • Tuesdays and Thursdays were favored for weddings because the rest of the days were thought to be unlucky.

  • A day during the waxing moon was always preferred.

  • When the bride entered her new house for the first time she had to be careful to step over the threshold if she would be lucky.

  • A cake of bread and a cheese, both of which had been previously either broken or cut into pieces, were placed on a plate and thrown over the bride’s had as she entered the door. If the plate broke it was a good omen as to having a son as heir. 

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Photo credits: Leanne Townsend

 


Monday, April 23, 2018

Wedding flowers and the superstitions tied to them


Wedding traditions are often rooted in superstition. Believe it or not, this even includes wedding flowers. In fact, wedding superstitions linked to flowers can be traced back to ancient Rome, ancient Greece, Asia, and elsewhere around the globe. While some ancient cultures didn’t actually carry or use flowers exactly like we do today, the plants they chose to incorporate in the wedding can be traced back as the precursor of the wedding flowers we have today. Of course, we don’t believe the superstitions they held back then, but isn’t it fun to know where some wedding traditions got started and why?


Wedding superstitions associated with flowers

Among wedding superstitions these are associated with flowers.

  • In ancient Rome, brides carried a bouquet of herbs which symbolized faithfulness and fertility. They believed it warded off evil spirits.
  • In ancient Greece, brides carried ivy, which actually has a history of being a plant of superstition. For instance, ivy growing against the side of a house was believed to keep witches away. The ancient Greeks thought that it prevented drunkenness, and when the bride carried ivy at her weddings it was thought to be a symbol of never-ending love for her spouse.
  • In Victorian times, the bride tossed her wedding bouquet to a friend as she left the celebrations. This practice is still pretty commonplace today, but back then it was thought to keep that friend safe because it warded off evil spirits and brought her luck. This evolved into a tradition of its own as it came to mean that the single woman who caught the bouquet would be next to marry.
     Merigolds were eaten because they were thought to be aphrodisiacs! 
                      
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  • Brides actually ate the flowers they carried in Tudor England. They traditionally carried marigolds dipped in rosewater which ranged in flavors from spicy or peppery to bitter. The reason they ate them? They were thought to be aphrodisiacs!
  • In the Middle East tradition, a bitter herb called artemisia is included in the bridal bouquet to make certain that marriages will survive the bitter times as well as harmonious times.
  • In Asia, the mothers of brides and grooms in Thailand drape Thai wedding flower garlands around the couple’s shoulders as a wish for good fortune in the life together.
  • In South Asia, at the end of Indian wedding ceremonies, the groom’s brother sprinkles flower petals over the newly married couple to protect them from evil.
     A white rose represents purity.

Wedding flowers meaning
In the Victorian era, people were also fascinated by “meanings” of different flowers. This is the time when the idea that the meaning of the rose represented true love became popular. Since then, the rose is a favorite wedding flower, but the meaning has evolved to depend on the flower's color with a white rose representing purity and a pink rose signifying joy.

Crowns of orange blossoms traditionally worn by the bride and groom in a Greek Orthodox wedding were thought to symbolize virginity and purity.

Today various popular wedding flowers are thought to have different meanings. For instance, just the flowers that grow in my front garden include the daffodil which represents new beginnings, the hydrangea which means to consider, and the iris which represents perseverance. Just think, if your creative, your floral arrangements can tell a story all their own on your wedding day!

Photo credits: pixabay, pixabay, Wikimedia

Saturday, September 26, 2015

10 wedding traditions and superstitions for good luck


Threads of superstitions entwine many wedding traditions in America. Think about it. Why else do we say, the groom shouldn't see the bride before the wedding, or why wear something old, something new, something borrowed,and something blue? Many wedding traditions are tied to good luck or avoiding bad luck. For instance, rain on your wedding day is thought to bring good luck.

Tony Curtis carries new bride Janet Leigh over the threshhold, 4 June 1951.

Why carry the bride over threshold?


Carrying the bride over the threshold is thought to bring luck to the newlywed's union, but it didn't start out that way. This tradition started in ancient Rome where the bride had to show she didn't want to leave her father's home, and so she was dragged across the threshold into the groom's home. This practice combined with the ancient belief that evil spirits hovered at the threshold to the new home waiting to curse the couple, started the practice of carrying the bride over the threshold. Why? So the spirits couldn't enter the bride body through the soles of her feet. It was a way to turn a "curse" into a "blessing" or bad luck into good. (Though it does leave one wondering whey they didn't worry about the spirits entering the groom).


Spider on your wedding dress? Don't freak out. It's good luck.

9 more wedding traditions for luck

  1. Other superstitions thought to bring luck included the bride placing a cube of sugar in her glove on her wedding day to sweeten the union. (I wonder if eating sugar on your wedding day could work? I mean just eat some wedding cake, right?)
  2. And if you see a spider on your wedding dress, celebrate! That's supposed to mean good luck! (Uh, yeah, good luck with that. If I see a spider it's never good. I'd rather go with the superstition that a lady bug brings good luck).
  3. According to English tradition and lore, when it comes to luck the best day of the week to get married is Wednesday and the worst day is Saturday. (Maybe that explains the high divorce rate these days! Saturday is now the most popular day to tie the knot).
  4. And on the gross side of traditions, the ancient Romans studied pig entrails to decide the luckiest time to marry.
  5. Throwing oats, grains, dried corn, (for Czech newlyweds it was peas), and eventually why we throw rice or birdseed, was meant to shower the couple with good fortune, prosperity, and fertility.
  6. Egyptian brides are pinched for good luck.
  7. Middle Eastern brides paint their hands and feet with henna (a beautiful tradition) thought to protect from the evil eye.
  8. A Swedish wedding tradition includes coins in shoes. The bride slips a silver coin from her father in one shoe and a gold coin from her mother in the other. This is to ensure she will never have to do without.
  9. In Holland, a pine tree is planted outside the home of the newly married couple as a symbol of luck and fertility.
Many of these wedding traditions are now practiced in America but most people have no clue why. Now you do. Do you have a wedding tradition you'd like to know more about? If so let me know.

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Photo credits: yehyehgrace , pexels, wikimedia