Wedding Rituals and Customs 2: A History of the Wedding Arch and the Chuppah

Welcome to part 2 of our exclusive guide to the history of wedding rituals and customs.

Arch- picture c/o Lady Pinkie on pinterest.com

If you've read our introductory blog A Guide to Wedding Rituals and Customs, you’ll know why it is beneficial to understand the history and symbolism of the rituals and customs you choose to use on your very special day. Whether it’s the traditional white bridal gown, the page boy or the flower girl, or the exchange of rings, each ritual has its own unique symbolism, and is steeped in rich and, sometimes surprising, history. Today, we’re looking at the wedding arch…

Not only is it a lot of fun, but passing through a wedding arch, somehow conjures an aura of elven magic, fairytale enchantment, and knightly valour. If you are having an outdoor Handfasting Ceremony, or wedding ceremony, it is a fantastic and fascinating substitute for walking down the aisle. And you and your bow beneath the arch, looks absolutely beautiful in photos.

Did you know, that the Bride and Groom used to pass through an arch of swords to ensure safe passage into their new life together? 

Chuppah- picture c/o marthastewartweddings.com

As romantic as this might seem, doing that today might be a little kitsch for some, and a little dangerous for others!! The modern interpretation is the gorgeous wedding arch, often seen decorated with flowers, fairy lights, ribbons, balloons, and gorgeous fabrics. One of our staff members even chose to represent the wedding arch, with two flaming torches, their stakes decorated with beautiful flowers.

Similar to the arch is a Jewish Chuppah- a canopy strung on four poles: the four poles are held by four people that have special significance to the bride and groom: it is an honour, and a wonderful way to include four special people, in your wedding ceremony.

Ideal for a beach wedding, a Chuppah can provide shade for your ceremony to take place under. And it looks stunning in photographs.

Nets of Lights strung on trees
Picture c/o saveoncrafts.com

If you have a lot of guests, the Chuppah can be self-supported, which means people can join you beneath the canopy. We've seen Chuppah’s made of tye-dye and batik, great for an alternative, festival-loving couple, innovatively formed from nets of lights (similar to left), for those who love a little glamour and night life, and even camouflage, for army couples! It is a lovely Jewish tradition that can be an inspiration for non-Jewish couples alike.

Whether the Chuppah, or the wedding arch, both structures represent the new home that you and your partner will build, and the new family and life you will be building as well:

Your wedding arch is the doorway to the passage of your new life. Like stepping through a gate onto an unknown road, it has archetypal resonance with your guests, adding intrinsic meaning to your wedding. It represents a rite of passage, and the opportunity to physically embody this moment, for you and your partner. You go into the arch, as two single people, and are born, through the arch, out into the world again, a united force. The symbolism is similar to a baptism. It represents change.

If the idea of a wedding arch takes your fancy, and you have an eye for a bargain, included in Lily Blossom’s exclusive Forever Wedding package, is the exclusive hire of our gorgeous wedding arch for your special day. Consider having your arch decorated with seasonal flowers and lights for a magical feel. See the leaflet (right), and give us a call on 0208 979 5656, or email us for details.

Check out our guide to the history and symbolism of the lovely Flower Girl here, and subscribe for updates.

A Guide to Wedding Rituals and Customs

 From the old adage, ‘Something borrowed, something blue’, to the exchange of wedding rings, rituals and customs have always been a highly important part of weddings, globally. Each custom and ritual has its own history and symbolism.

Often, we employ these rituals and customs, without giving much thought, to why they exist, and how they benefit us.

So, this new weekly series of blogs from Lily Blossom Florists, will help you to understand the history and symbolism of each wedding ritual and custom; and help you to think about how you can, and why you should, personalize each one, to make your wedding day a unique, meaningful experience.

What is a Ritual?

A ritual is a performed series of actions including words, gestures and objects.

Weddings are a rite of passage, and as such, contain many rituals and customs, such as, walking down the aisle, getting married under an arch, having a flower girl and page boy walk before the bride and groom, the exchange of wedding rings, wearing a bridal gown, and the wedding breakfast.

But why do we perform these rituals?

The Psychological Benefit of Ritual

Isn’t it funny: we goal-set for our career, employ visualization techniques, and give preparation to events such as interviews. We define the terms of ‘success’, in board meetings, with measurable outcomes and targets, so that we know exactly what ‘success’ means to our team, and can recognise it when we attain it. But we don’t do this, when entering into a potentially life-long marriage!

The more we prepare for a goal, the more committed we are to the process, the more we are able to influence the outcome. Recent studies, show that when rituals are performed with specific outcomes in mind, the result is much more likely to be favourable.

So often, we enter into marriage with a wooly, unclear idea of what we hope and expect. However, there is a new (or some would argue-  resurgent ) school of thought, to suggest that the more explicit we are, with our partner, about what exactly we want and expect from a marriage, the more likely a successful marriage becomes.

How to Use Rituals on Your Wedding Day

Complementary with Lily Blossom's Forever Wedding Package

Your wedding is a day-long ritual. We would go further to suggest that, the more preparation, thought, detail, and emotional significance that you attach to the aesthetics of your wedding, the clearer you will be about what you are signing up to.

For instance: choosing your wedding colours because they are ‘nice’ or fashionable, is well and good. But choosing purple, because of its spiritual or cultural significance, or blue, because it represents water, and therefore, the importance of emotions, is by far a more informed, conscious choice.

Choosing white roses to represent the peace and tranquility that you desire for your new home, while you strive in the outside world for success, and making sure that you openly declare the significance of the white rose, is a more sensible strategy, than simply choosing white roses ‘because you like them’.

By personalizing and engaging in ritual, we are committing on both a conscious, and more importantly, subconscious level. It is the thought we give to the details of our wedding, and the symbolic significance that we consciously attribute to those aesthetic details, that are important.

Choosing colours for particular reasons, is like visualizing what you want for your married life. By selecting these things together, you are in fact, stating your subconscious (or conscious) wishes and desires, and actively visualising them.

By far the easiest, most beautiful, and most popular way to make visible your goals for married life, is with flowers. After all, they have their own language!

How to Choose a Wedding Florist

Your partner and yourself are getting married because you love each other, you want to achieve things together, and because together, you are stronger.

Before choosing a florist, or employing any other type of wedding planning service, think together, about what it is you want to achieve. Would you like children? Is romance important to you? Do you insist on honesty? Is emotional strength a non-negotiable? Do you both long for that quaint little house by the sea? Is it important to you both, that you bring your own culture and customs to your union and future family?

Once you have discussed this, and have a clearer idea (which by no means has to be finite), our guide can help you to understand which flowers, colours, wedding rituals and customs can best represent your shared goals.

With the average spend on wedding flowers reaching £450, it is of course vital you give thought to who you choose as your wedding florist. They must be, what we like to call, ‘The Three P’s’:

Personable, Passionate and Professional.

In order to be able to create floral decorations that represent your highly personal desires for your new life, your wedding florist will have to be trustworthy and non-judgmental; you have to feel that you can talk openly with them, that they will take your desires seriously, and translate your perhaps initially unclear desires, into more concrete, visually stunning floral creations.

If you don’t feel your florist is taking your desires seriously, walk away. Knowledgeable florists will be able to combine what is fashionable, with what is meaningful. Wedding floristry is very different from other types of floristry. Your wedding day will be one of the most meaningful days of your life, if the right attention to detail is applied.

Put Your Best Foot Forward!

Psychologists and social scientists are finding that rituals may well make for better emotional adjustment to a new situation. In other words, creating and engaging in highly personal rituals on your wedding day, allows you to demonstrate your commitment to your shared goals, and go into your marriage with your best foot forward.

Professional wedding florists, Lily Blossom, have an excellent wedding flowers deal, which will see you receiving a free bouquet of fresh flowers, every year, on your anniversary, for twelve years. The exclusive package was featured in popular men's online wedding magazine The Groom List, in 2013, and has been riotously popular since then! It makes a beautiful engagement gift. 

The package effectively means that, if you spend a minimum of £400 on your wedding flowers (including buttonholes, table centrepieces and the important bouquet), you will have got your wedding flowers, for free, with a whole host of other benefits. In this financially difficult time, it is an extremely good deal.  

Give Lily Blossom a call on 0208 979 5656, or email them, and ask about their ‘Forever Wedding’ package, for full details.

Subscribe for special offers, full access and updates to our ‘Guide to Wedding Rituals’, and more.

Wedding Rituals and Customs 1: A History of the Flower Girl

Deciding to include a Flower Girl in your wedding procession is one of the most adorable wedding customs.

The little girl, pretty as a princess, who totters behind the bride with  a basket, or a bouquet of fresh flowers. “Awww!” croon your delighted guests, as she nearly trips over her little gown and flashes her cute dimples at onlookers.

Cute it is, definitely. But where on earth did this tradition come from???

  

Available at Lily Blossom Florists

The Flower Girl’s debut, took place in ancient Rome, when she first skipped her merry way down the aisle, part of the wedding procession, carrying a wreath to symbolise prosperity and fertility, in the hope of bestowing these virtues upon the lucky bride and groom. The wreath was made of wheat and herbs.

Later, the Flower Girl’s role evolved, to ward off evil, and she would carry garlic down the aisle.

However, contemporary flower girls are often dressed in a gown that will mirror the bride’s outfit, but in miniature. In fact, this is reminiscent of a very Elizabethan tradition, when children were dressed in the same style as their parents and carers, mirroring their outfits, as can be seen from the picture (right). 

While this is undoubtedly a charming tradition, it has a deeper underlying meaning: the Flower Girl is in fact, dressed as the bride, to symbolize the bride’s transition, from maiden/ little girl, into womanhood, through marriage. Our little flower girl represents childhood innocence.

Available from Lily Blossom Florists

To add this symbolic depth to your Flower Girl’s bouquet, and pay homage to her history, consider asking your wedding florist to combine your choice of wedding flowers with herbs, echoing the symbology of prosperity and fertility (if you should so desire), and perhaps, to sculpture a wreath out of your flowers. You can even ask them to include garlic in their design if you like, but we wouldn’t recommend it!

This wreath can be worn by your Flower Girl, around the head, or carried, like it was by her Ancient Roman predecessor.

These days, you can choose to have your flower girl carry a basket of fresh flowers, which she can scatter along the aisle as she goes; or you may decide you’d like her to hold a ‘kissing ball’, especially if this is the style of bouquet you have chosen for yourself.

We have known our brides to choose to have the Flower Girl wear a wreath of flowers in her hair, and blow bubbles before the bride, or indeed, fresh rose petals, instead of confetti.

Flower Girls traditionally walk down the aisle with their equally cute partners, the Page Boy, therefore completing the symbolism of transformation from innocent love, to the intimate adult connection that comes with marriage. They walk ahead of the Bride and Groom, to symbolize this passing of the passage of time. 

Available from Lily Blossom Florists.

Choosing to have a Flower Girl is a fantastic way to include a little one who may be too young to handle the responsibilities of being a bridesmaid. She will look gorgeous in photographs and add the kind of charm to your ceremony that only a little girl can. 

Two Hot Trends in Wedding Flowers

Bring the Outside In…

Bringing the outside in is the hot trend for weddings.

This trend was begun in 2011 by those most royal of trendsetters Prince William and the lovely Kate Middleton.  The velvet red wedding aisle or Westminster Abbey became a magical path through an enchanted forest, for the day. It was lined with 20ft trees, bringing the beautiful British countryside right into the heart of the urban Abbey. A beautiful and original take on wedding floral design that looks set to continue into 2015 and beyond.

Royal Wedding Photo c/o sheknows.com

One of the simplest, and prettiest way to bring the outside in, is a gorgeous combination of birdcages and stunning, fresh, seasonal blooms. Birdcages are rich in marital symbolism. Ornately decorated birdcages were used in Victorian times, to hold the white doves that would be released by the bride and groom during the wedding ceremony.

Using an assortment of different birdcages adds a lovely, unique touch to your wedding’s interior décor. And it is fun trawling the garden centres, antique shops and preloved.com to find them! Both Ebay and Etsy have a fantastic range of original, vintage and hand-distressed birdcages. Bring them to Lily Blossom’s floristry studio, and we will fill them with bountiful blooms. You can spray them vibrant colours, or whitewash them easily, and relatively cheaply. Add little butterflies, which are gorgeous symbols of transformation, or birds. Fix the birds to the outside of the cages, and they are a beautiful symbol of freedom.

Add one flower-filled cage to the centre of each table, and give them away to the wedding party as ‘thank you’ gifts. They make beautiful, thoughtful, handmade gifts. 

Floral Birdcage by Lilyblossom, East Molesey

‘Flower Trees’ are another pretty and popular trend. Willow twigs adorned with ribbons and blooms, and a touch of glitter to add some sparkle, placed as table centrepieces, or larger versions, lining the aisle, will instantly lift your venue and mark your wedding out from the rest. Get in touch with us and we can help you to visualize your ideas.

Something Blue…

An unusual and sumptuous trend has hit the wedding floristry scene this year. And it is a wonderful take on the old adage ‘something borrowed, something blue…’ Floral arrangements that reflect the mystery and calming intensity of water, are going to be extremely popular this year. Consider dressing your bridesmaids in a palette of complementary blues (see below). Combine indigo with turquoise for a truly stunning, romantic feel. Or rich, royal blues, deep, decadent greens and shimmering purples for a decadent, almost ‘twenties glamour. A little tip: the palette of blues below compliments perfectly, either cream/ ivory wedding gowns, or glistening hot white wedding dresses with diamante detailing.

To achieve the perfect aquamarine look with beautiful blooms, consider flower arrangements that utilize thick, fleshy succulents (plants naturally designed for retaining water), reeds (naturally found in watery landscapes) and other textured greens.

Other flowers that perfectly conjure the deep intensity of water, are blue delphinium, agapanthus and Palenopsis Orchids.

Combine these flowers with shades of blue, curved glass, for the ultimate in aquamarine beauty.

Did you know…

The original bridal poem, often referred to as ‘The Four Somethings’, actually includes five somethings! The fifth, is traditionally a sixpence:

“Something Old

Something New

Something Borrowed,

Something Blue,

And a silver sixpence in her shoe.”

The rhyme originated in English folklore, and was first recorded in writing, around 1898!

As you can tell by now, there is nothing we love more than a good wedding. In future blogs we’ll be bringing you the latest trends in wedding floristry, with hints and tips on how you can achieve the look. Subscribe here for regular updates.