Wedding myths explored

“Gawd,” screeches Gaynor, “he’s dropped the wedding ring, doesn’t he know it’s bad luck to drop the wedding ring?” Gaynor sounds desperate. It seems that if the ring is dropped during the actual wedding ceremony, that’s lucky, but if it’s dropped accidentally before, well, that’s tickets for all and sundry.

How many more of these myths are there floating around. Once a bride begins searching, of course, there’s no end to these funny little assumptions and beliefs. My advice: don’t even entertain them. Most of them won’t happen anyway, but we’ve included a couple of the nicer ones that you might actually want to incorporate into your big day:

The bride should not make her own wedding dress: apparently for every stitch the bride sews in her own dress, she will shed a tear during marriage. Oh, and, wearing the entire outfit before the big day is also supposed to bring bad luck, so maybe just try on bits and pieces together.

Something old, something new…you probably know this one well. But it’s a fun idea to wear something old from a loved one to represent the bride’s past, something new for her future (usually the dress qualifies), something borrowed will bring good luck, and something blue because in Victorian times the colour symbolised purity, constancy and fidelity.

Tears on your wedding day: if the bride cries on her wedding day it is considered good luck as she will cry all her tears away leaving none for marriage, or they will bring rain for crops.

Rain on the wedding day: if it rains then you’ll have lots of children, or so the saying goes, but there is a more ominous suggestion of rain representing the tears of the bride during the marriage.

The shoe – mother of the groom – I like this one, and hadn’t heard it before. It is apparently considered good luck for the groom’s mother to throw a shoe at the departing newly weds (well, specifically at the bride’s departing back), to make sure that the two will remain friends throughout the marriage. Not sure this would go down too well nowadays…