Alistair Westcott is a well known registered marriage officer who conducts wedding services in Afrikaans or English
in a casual or formal manner. His services include denominational, traditional and personal weddings, for heterosexual couples.
Visit his website...
The English believe a spider found in a wedding dress means good luck.
The longest wedding dress was found in Germany with a length of 515 feet.
On her wedding day Grace Kelly wore a dress with a bodice made from beautiful 125-year-old lace.
Who wore the first ever white wedding dress? Anne of Brittany (in 1499), for her marriage to Louis XII of France.
The wedding veil comes to us from ancient Greece and Rome where brides wore them to protect themselves from evil spirits.
In Asia brides and grooms will wear robes that have been embroidered with cranes, which symbolize faithfulness and fidelity.
Guests in ancient times would tear off part of the bride's gown as tokens of good luck, leading to the tradition of the bride throwing both her garter and her bouquet.
Oriental wedding dresses often display embroidered cranes, which are symbols of life-long fidelity. At Japanese weddings, the presence of 1001 white paper origami cranes is considered good luck.
Queen Victoria made white the bridal colour of choice when she wore it to wed Prince Albert in 1840. However, because white is the colour of mourning in Eastern cultures, white wedding dresses are uncommon.
In many communities in the Hindu Religion there is a wedding ritual in which the sisters-in-law hide the shoes of their jija or brother-in-law and return them only in exchange for money. It's a very fun-filled and enjoying ritual.
During Biblical times shoes were seen as a badge of authority because they lifted a person off the ground, differentiating them from barefoot slaves and serfs. They were used to seal a bargain and a father would give his son-in-law a pair on the wedding day as symbol of transferring authority.
The bride's veil traditionally symbolized her youth and virginity. Veils also hid the bride from jealous spirits or the Evil Eye. In the past, veils could be red, blue or yellow (the color of Hymen, the Greek god of marriage). The modern white veil became popular during the Victorian era as a symbol of purity and modesty. A white veil also connoted that a bride was wealthy enough to wear white.
