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The Tale of Tossing the Wedding Garter

We’re a bit lean on entries this week so we thought we’d offer you some insight on the tradition of the wedding garter. You’ll either impress someone with your knowledge or get one of those “too much information” looks. We did find some lovely images of custom made garters (source below).

Today, the bride wears two garters; one as a keepsake garter and the other for the throw away. Both garters are worn on the right leg just above the knee. Before the removal of the garter, the bride first throws her bouquet to the single women.

After the garter is removed, he then throws it to the single male guests. The male guest then takes the garter and places it on the leg of the single female guest who has caught the bouquet (or that’s what tradition says).

The keepsake garter is meant to be removed later in private during the honeymoon night.

The garter tradition originated back to the 14th century. In parts of Europe the guests of the bride and groom believed having a piece of the bride’s clothing was thought to bring good luck. They would actually destroy the brides dress by ripping off pieces of fabric. Obviously, this tradition did not sit well with the bride, so she began throwing various items to the guests – the garter being one of them. It became customary for the bride to toss the garter to the men. But this also caused a great problem for the bride….sometimes the men would get drunk, become impatient and try to remove the garter ahead of time. Therefore, the custom derived at having the groom remove and toss the garter to the men. With this change, the bride began to toss the bridal boutique to the unwed girls who were eligible for marriage.

Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue … Did you ever wonder where the custom “Something Blue” derived from? Wearing something blue dates back to biblical times when the color blue was considered to represent purity, faithfulness and fidelity. Back then the bride would wear a piece of blue clothing or a blue band around the bottom of her dress. The ancient Roman maidens also wore blue on the borders of their robes to symbolize their love, fidelity and modesty, while the Christians associated it with the purity of the Virgin Mary.

Images from DiFrancia Bridal Collection