Some Odd Weddings Traditions
Man and woman being together as one, for the rest of their lives.
Sounds romantic doesn’t it? For the man and the woman to leave their families and to be as one and form a new family. This is the foundation of the marriage tradition. Throughout the millennia, the concept of family and marriage have been so closely knotted together that it is sometimes impossible to separate one from the other.
Marriage is present in every culture in some form. Whatever the culture, legal aspect or how their society recognizes marriage, it is still the union of a man and woman living together in one dwelling.
The traditions surrounding marriage have changed throughout the ages, in all the many diversities of each culture. For each culture, there are different ways of celebrating marriage. But in each culture, there has always been one thing that has remained the same – that in every culture, every tribe, marriage has always been celebrated with the utmost of festivities, of singing, eating, and celebrating.
Along with these festivities, man has also adopted a growing number of traditions, each filled with meaning and believe it or not, they can have shocking origins.
The Wedding Cake Long ago the tradition was for the groom’s family to make a simple cake for the bride as a gift and this has now evolved to the fabulous wedding cakes we use to celebrate with today. These small cakes where called, ’groom’s cakes’ and were put under the brides pillow the evening before the wedding event. The idea behind it was that she would sleep on the cake and dream about the groom and their new life together, and this obviously would crush the cake.
This cake could easily be termed as ’pound cake’ because it would be “pound up” and then they would give pieces to people to crumble and toss at the new couple as a sign of fertility. That is where the today’s custom of tossing rice on the bride and groom originally came from.
Wedding cakes today usually will have several layers to them. The higher the stack, the more glamorous the cake. The decorations on the cake are a fashionable choice of the bride and groom for their guest to enjoy. However, in the past the layers on the wedding cake were used as a symbol of fertility. Couples would stack these cakes to symbolize how many children they wished the couple to have. It was a long tradition that the more stacks in the cake the more children they would have.
Time to Tie the Knot
You’ve heard of ’tying the knot’, that is one that has a very old origin indeed, but it did not necessarily mean being knotted together. During ancient tribal times, the bride would usually be wrapped in a sheep skin with a knot out in front. This was to symbolize virginity. Untying the knot, was the groom’s privilege during the wedding night.
Best Man or should I say, Secret Agent? The best man used to play a different role in the early middle ages. During tribal times, it was the best man’s duty to abduct potential brides from other tribes. He would usually club the tribal lady over the head and then begin to carry her back to his home tribe, sounds like something from a comic strip but it’s true. It was also the best man’s job to ward off the angry relatives of the bride. During these early ages, the best man would have club in hand while his friend, the groom married his newly found bride.
Current Times
Fortunately for us, today’s weddings are far less barbaric in nature and there have been a lot of changes from many of the wedding traditions of old. These traditions are filled with meaning and can only serve to make your wedding day more memorable.
