Elements of Ritual and Play during Weddings

Elements of Ritual and Play during Weddings
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In many places around the world, weddings are composed of a gauntlet of rituals and play. Some of these may seem socially awkward and some may be uncomfortable. Most of these rituals used to be worse, but traditions die out. In Greece, the brides of ancient Sparta had to undergo a ritual which involved shaving of the hair. They then had to wear men`s' clothing and wait for their grooms to come and steal them in the night (Munro, 1996). This shows how much the weddings have revolutionalised since these times. This paper gives an insight on some of the wedding rituals and plays encountered in most parts of the world.
The first ritual to focus on is the tossing of the garter and the bridal bouquet. This ritual is believed to be a transformation of an idea which was popular in the fourteen century, especially among the French society (Munro, 1996). In these times, one was regarded as lucky if one got a fragment of the clothing of the bride. Therefore, guests would grab at the brides wedding dress so as to get a piece out of it. Most brides objected to these due to the wanton destruction of their wedding gowns. These led to the search of an alternative practice in order to deviate from this one, but still serve the same purpose. Hence, the custom of throwing a garter and other personal article to the guests emerged and has since remained to present.
In other societies, the garter is seen to represent the virginal girdle (Stewart, 1995). This means that when the groom removes the garter, he is in essence declaring and demonstrating publicly, that the bride has relinquished the virgin status. There is usually a superstition that whoever wins the brides garter is lucky. There have been places where the guests have gotten impatient, drunk and unruly and attempted to try and tear the brides garter off. This has led to the modification into the present day ritual.
The groom usually removes and tosses the garter. In some places, the groom uses his teeth to remove the garter from the leg of the bride. This is usually before the bride tosses the bouquet. Most believe that the man who catches the garter, and the girl who catches the bouquet, will be the next in line to marry. Customs have it that the unmarried men, who catch the garter, should place it on the legs of the ladies who have the bouquet. In this way, they increase their chances of being the next to tie the knot (Stewart, 1995).
Couples nowadays consider utilizing alternative traditions to the bouquet and garter tossing. This is because there have been reports of injuries in the stamped to catch the bouquet or garter. Children may be caught underfoot or adults injured, hence the evolvement of other alternatives. One such option is to assemble or the teens girls and presentation of each with a flower from the bouquet. Other alternatives include throwing of confetti, petals or ribbons; hence each attendant will have a piece of the ‘wedding luck` (Stewart, 1995).
Another ritual that hardly misses in all the weddings is the wedding cake and cutting ritual. Throughout the years, the wedding cake is usually the focus of most traditions and customs. The cutting of the cake has since evolved from various traditional manners pertaining to the wedding cake. One such tradition is the breaking of the wedding cake over the head of the bride. These pioneers of these practices were believed to be the Roman Empire citizens. The groom would break the baked bread over the brides head symbolizing the breaking of the virgin status of the bride (Munro, 1996). This cannot be practiced nowadays mostly due to practical reasons. Wedding cakes have evolved into more modern and larger versions and it is impractical to properly break the large cake over the bride`s head.
The wedding cakes in most places are usually white. White denotes purity. Cutting of the cake takes a pivotal role in the wedding ceremony. This is symbolically the first role that the wife and husband conduct jointly. Usually, the fir...