Traditional Bride's Bread a Piece of Art

Before we had wedding cakes, people celebrated with wedding bread. I mentioned this in my post about the Evolution of the Wedding Cake Tradition and how the bread was thrown at the bride for good luck during the ceremony to encourage fertility! 

Later as this custom evolved, the groom broke the loaf over the bride’s head and showered her with crumbs for good luck. While many cultures transitioned from bread to sweet confections, wedding bread is still a beautiful tradition in places like Bulgaria, Russia, Ukrainia, Poland and Romania. When I say “beautiful,” I’m not just talking in a theoretical sense. This bread known as Russian karavay, Ukranian korovai, karavai, korowaj or kravai holds deep symbolic meaning, and unlike wedding cakes of today, can’t be bought (or at least not for those holding to tradition). 

Symbolic Meaning of Korovai Wedding Bread

For the sake of this post, I’ll choose the korovai spelling for this traditional bride’s bread. This ritual bread is the main symbol of the marriage ceremony no matter the order of events or the format of the wedding (church or civil). Its shape and decorations all hold symbolic meanings.

• Round shape represents the sun. In the ancient Slavic culture, the god of the son was the main deity and so the round loaf was one way to curry the sun god’s favor for a new family.
• Decorations adorning the loaf: Korovai loaves are decorated with dough decorations like leaves and flowers and traditionally included two rings or a pair of swans which represents loyalty in love. While it baked, wheat stalks and tiny viburnum twigs were added. The wheat symbolized prosperity and the viburnum represented love and children. And since the bread was thought to bring happiness, many times bigger was thought to be better because the larger the loaf the more happiness would be bestowed on the newlyweds.

Today, decorations include braided strips of dough, spiral shapes, and cutters are used to create flowers and heart shapes, and little bits of rolled dough form berries, along with other creative touches.

Eating Korovai

Traditionally the bride and groom were the first have a bite of the korovai, and then it was shared with all the guests. This distribution of bread to others represented sharing their happiness. As for the decorations, they were normally doled out to unmarried girls as a way to help fulfill their wish for family happiness in their own lives.

Who Makes the Bride’s Bread?

Traditionally, making korovai was a process that combined a number of ceremonies that could take days to complete. Singing songs and prayers were part of this ritual, and the use of specific tools like a traditional ceremonial millstone to grind the grain were all essentials. But besides the ceremonial rites and tools the thing that hasn’t changed is who makes the bride’s bread. The answer is: only married women…and not just married women, but married women who have children and strong family bonds. Only these women were trusted to make the dough because through the process it was thought that they were sharing their family happiness with the newlyweds..

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Photo credits: pixabay, mazovia.pl, garnek

Are Wedding Vows Biblical?

Today, wedding vows are a common part of most wedding ceremonies. In most cases, the actual exchange of marital vows in church weddings is preceded by a short speech given by the person marrying the couple, followed by personal or standard vows chosen by the bride and groom. Often, Christian couples incorporate Bible verses about love and marriage in their wedding vows but are wedding vows themselves biblical? 

God is love wedding bulletin

Wedding Vows in the Bible

Technically, wedding vows are not even mentioned in the Bible. Not specifically or in passing. And technically, since the early church met in homes, church weddings in a special church building weren’t even around until Rome started changing pagan temples into church buildings in the early 4^th century. So the concept of Christian vows and church wedding are relatively new traditions compared to some and neither are found in the Bible.

Where Did Christian Wedding Vows Originate

Where did the idea of wedding vows originate? It's not certain, but the modern concept of wedding vows for Christian marriages in the Western world can be traced back to 1662, in a book titled the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. In fact, we get much of our “modern” marriage ceremony practice from this book. For instance, it includes a ‘solemnization of matrimony’ section which includes familiar lines like: “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today,” as well as the famous “in sickness and health, until death do them part.”

Use of Bible Verses in Wedding Vows

While wedding vows aren’t exactly spelled out in the Bible, Scripture is often used to generate vows for Christian couples. For instance, “I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine,” from Song of Solomon 6:3, is often recited in Jewish and Christian weddings. Scripture from 1 Corinthians 13 (also referred to as the ‘love chapter’ is another popular go to section of the Bible.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails (1 Corinthians 13:4-8).

While wedding vows may not be spelled out in the Bible, the practice of making vows to God is found in both the Old and New Testaments. Wedding vows recited by brides and grooms who desire God to be included in every aspect of their lives, recite these vows to each other before God.

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Thanks so much for being part of our success.

Photo credits: Amazon, Wikimedia, Alpha Stock Images