Wedding Customs From American History

In colonial times, the preferred color for a wedding dress was red. Which makes sense, when you think about it. Fabric made of cotton is white, unless you make the time and effort to dye it. Linen, which is made of fibers from the flax plant, is naturally cream or light tan in color. And unless you have black sheep, any woolen garment is, again, white or off-white. White clothes were cheap. But red, real, vermillion red - now that was expensive like a wedding dress should be!

In the past, girls were warned that if they were strong enough to break an apple in half with their bare hands, or kiss someone with a mustache and get one of the hairs in their own mouth, or if they ate the point of a piece of pie before eating the rest, they probably wouldn't get married. Considering the almost unanimous American tendency to eat a slice of pie point-first, it's amazing our ancestors ever married!

Sometimes among the balloons, shaving cream, washable paint, "Just Married" signs and tin cans that cover the well-decorated bridal car, people will still tie a pair of old shoes to the bumper. This goes back to a time when the bride's father gave her old shoes to the groom as a sign that he was now responsible for her. The groom was also expected to hit his bride on the head with one of the shoes to make sure she understood this. I don't think that would go over very well today.

"If you sit on a table, you'll marry before you're able."

Marry when the year is new (January), your mate will be constant, kind, and true."

May weddings were considered unlucky. That explains why my first husband and I divorced! It was also considered unlucky to marry on a rainy or snowy day.

Another old custom was the wedding night shivaree. After the ceremony and the reception, the newlyweds would retire, supposedly for the evening, only to have everyone in town show up under their window! Their friends would bang pots and pans together, and everyone would sing - loud and lewd. The couple had two choices: they could either invite everyone in for more food and drink and partying until dawn, or they could ignore the singing and the noise and get about the business of consummating the marriage. I'm not sure I'd be able to "perform" under such circumstances - wedding night, family and friends slamming pots together and singing badly under the window - but maybe my ancestors were made of stronger stuff.

It was considered a very bad omen for the bride to cook even a part of her own wedding supper - she'd die shortly after the ceremony if she did. However, it was considered good luck for the bride to make her own wedding dress.

The newlywed who falls asleep first on the wedding night will be the first one of the pair to die. Maybe this is why some couples would welcome their shivareeing friends into their home for the rest of the night. There's no way to fall asleep with a house full of partyers!

American slave couples who "jumped the broom" to signify that they were married, even if only in the eyes of their fellow slaves, borrowed the custom from the Scottish indentured servants that worked alongside the slaves in the late 1600's and early 1700's. The Scots always jumped over a broom at the end of the wedding to symbolize leaping over the threshold into a new life as a married couple. When my husband Alex and I were married in January 2001, he wore a greatkilt, and I was in Renaissance garb. We jumped over a broom and waltzed down the aisle. We've been pretty happy ever since!