WEDDING CUSTOMS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22094, 27 April 1935, Page 6 (Supplement)

WEDDING CUSTOMS

THEIR ANCIENT ORIGIN MODERN ADAPTATIONS During the Middle Ages a bride always wore a dress of red or scarlet, and it. was not until Anne of Brittany married Charles VIII. of France that the custom was changed. She wore a white satin dress, made on classical lines, and her hair was simply dressed. The custom of a bride carrying a bouquet on her wedding day is- said to have originated in Venice. When the Doge paid his annual visit to the Convent of Delle Vergini, in Venicej he was received with great ceremony by the nuns. The youngest novice had the honour of presenting him with a bouquet of flowers grown in the convent garden. This bouquet was put into a holder of real gold and surrounded by Venice lace. From then onward brides carried bouquets, and during the Victorian age the bridal bouquet was of this type. Wedding rings were used thousands of years ago, but then they wore made of iron. The wedding ring was placed on the third finger of the bride's left hand because it was supposed that a vein connected it with the heart. In the time of Tertullian, one of the great fathers of the Latin Church, wedding rings were made of gold. In 1855 a statute was passed in Britain ordering all wedding rings to bo made of standard gold. In Anglo-Saxon times the bride was led to church by the bridegroom's men, all of whom were bachelors, and the bridesmaids escorted the bridegroom. The roads between the bride's home and the church were strewn with flowers, herbs and rushes.

Rosemary was always worn at weddings : Rosemarie is for remembrance Between us daie and night.

The bride and bridegroom were crowned with flowers in church. The bride did not wear a veil, but the nuptial benediction was performed under a veil of square piece of cloth held at each corner by a tall man. This was called the " Care Cloth." There was no rose petal or confettithrowing at weddings in ancient days. From the time of Tiberius, right down the ages, good wishes for the bridal pair were signified by the presence of wheat —the symbol of Nature's plenty —which was worn or scattered over the bride as she left the church. The Roman maid held corn at her wedding, while

bread of wheat was eaten by the witlIGSSGS. •» Centuries later the Anglo-Saxon bride was crowned with wheat, or carried it in the form of a chaplet. Quantities of wheat were noured over her head as she stood in the church porch, and the guests consumed the raw grain instead of a wedding breakfast. I It was the Tudor matron who nrst attempted to combine the symbolical wheaten shower with a more palatable form of diet. She substituted little sugured buns, rich with spice and coated with almond paste and comfits. Guests brought so many of these sweetmeats as offerings that many hundreds were collected for a well-to-do wedding, and great quantities were thrown to the poor. Here and there a man or maid reserved a piece to dream on. When all wore served the remainder was piled into a solid mound before the bride at the banquet, and here surely was the bride's cake in embryo. Years afterward convenience demanded a thin crust of sugar, but it was left to the skill and imagination of the French pastrycook of Stuart days to transform the shapeless mass of bridal bun 3 into a thing of beauty • fit to ornament a king's table.