What does the word wedding mean? What is a godfather? How about a bridesmaid? And why am I spending money on a cake that no one likes to eat? What does this all mean? Finally, she will fully understand why he is doing and saying the things she is doing while planning her wedding.
The word ‘wedding’ comes from the Anglo-Saxon word ‘wed’, which means that a man promises to marry a certain woman. Many times the groom would barter with the family for a specific daughter. In addition, the father of the bride would sell her to the groom for land or property that the family needed. More often than not, the husband-to-be noted how many children were in the family, which would be a good indication of what kind of breeder the purchased woman would be. Obviously that would last about a minute in this day and age!
The Bridal Party had its responsibilities. Historically, once the bride was exchanged, a “best man” or friend of the groom would kidnap the bride. If there were other suitors for the woman, she would help the groom-to-be fight against them. While the bride is kidnapped, the bridesmaid (depending on whether she is married or not) would gather all of her belongings and attend to all of her needs until she was properly married. Folklore says that when a woman does this for another, she is about to get married.
Why is the bride always on the left and the groom on the right? Do you remember how the groom had to fight contenders for his wife? Well, assuming there were no lefties in years, the groom would hold a sword in his right hand to stab those who got too close to his wife. Ah, the days of chivalry!
After the bride was successfully kidnapped, the bride and groom would go into hiding. The groom tried to get her ‘honey’ to the ‘moon’ or even farther away from her, so that when her family or other suitors found her, she would already be pregnant and rightfully his.
Arranged marriages were also very popular years ago. The groom’s parents chose a bride for him, but they never let her see her until the wedding day. Then, to keep it in suspense until the final moments, her face was veiled (in case she didn’t like what she saw) and the father who was ‘gifting’ her away lifted the veil and introduced the woman to the man. And the divorce rate was low?
The white wedding dress is perhaps the most misjudged tradition. Anne of Brittany made this popular in 1499 and she really had nothing to do with purity. It was worn by women who were so excited to get married that they wore white to show joy to the world. Why was the groom black then?
It is interesting that after hundreds of years many of these customs are still followed today. Most brides will not allow the groom to see her dress before the wedding for fear of bad luck. And every bride I know wore something old, new, borrowed, and blue. I would love to do a study to see if any of these things have affected their lives in one way or another. If so, I bet not as much as having a live-in mother-in-law.
