Wedding Tradtions
Incorporating wedding traditions in your
wedding day is a wonderful and fun way of
celebrating and recognising the historical
importance of marriage within a modern
context. Many traditions date back many
hundreds of years and consequently their
origins are not fully known although most
have their roots in ancient superstitious
beliefs. We have listed below a number of
traditions that are still popular throughout the
United Kingdom today.
Something Old, Something New,
Something Borrowed, Something Blue
The full wording of this popular bridal attire
rhyme is ‘something old, something new,
something borrowed, something blue and a
silver sixpence in your shoe’.
Something old refers to wearing something
that represents a link with the bride’s family
and her old life. Usually the bride wears a
piece of jewellery or maybe her mother or
grandmother’s wedding dress.
Wearing something new represents good
fortune and success in the bride’s new life.
The bride’s wedding dress is usually chosen,
if purchased new, but it can be any other new
item of the bride’s wedding attire.
Wearing something borrowed, which has already been worn by a happy bride at her
wedding, is meant to bring good luck to the marriage. Something borrowed could be
an item of bridal clothing, a handkerchief or an item of jewellery.
Wearing something
blue fates back to biblical times when the colour blue was considered to represent
purity and fidelity. Over time this has evolved from wearing a blue item of clothing
to wearing a blue band around the bottom of the bride’s dress and to modern times
where the bride wears a blue or blue trimmed garter.
...and a silver sixpence in
your shoe
Placing a silver sixpence in the bride’s left shoe is a symbol of wealth.
This is not just to bring the bride financial wealth but also a wealth of happiness
and joy throughout her married life.
Why the bride stands on the left
During the
marriage ceremony, the bride stands on the left and the groom on the right. The
origin of this goes back to the days when a groom would capture his bride by kidnapping
her. If the groom had to fight off other men who also wanted her as their bride,
he would hold his bride-to-be in his left hand allowing his right hand to be free
to use his sword.