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Tradition and custom are part and parcel of British life. The State Opening of Parliament is a good example of an old tradition that’s still observed to this day, as well as cheese-rolling festivals and Morris dancing.
When it comes to weddings, there are a number of traditions that are observed, from dresses, to vows, to gifts.
A lot of these aren’t exclusive to Britain; some of these traditions have crossed the pond to America, for example- however we’re going to take a closer look at the traditions that surround British weddings.
Let’s start at the beginning. Marriages are instigated by a proposal. Traditionally, in a heterosexual relationship, the man will propose to a woman. The only time, according to tradition, that a woman can propose to a man is once every four years, on the 29th February. The ring will be worn by the woman on the third finger on her left hand. This is because of an old Roman belief that this finger is the only finger that has a blood vessel that runs directly to the heart.
Once engaged, you become each other’s fiancé and fiancée. You must put out a notice in the local church or newspaper to announce your engagement. This is to give people a chance to raise any legal issues with your wedding. It’s pretty much just formal procedure but allows people to object if they believe the wedding is forced or fraudulent, and so on. This notice is known as ‘the banns’.
Brits typically observe the Western custom of marrying in a white dress. The white dress was popularised by the now second longest-serving monarch of the UK, Queen Victoria. When she married her beloved Albert in 1840, she wore a white gown with lace trim. This became the wedding dress of choice of Western brides.
Contrary to popular opinion, the white dress does not indicate the virginity of a bride; that is the job of the face veil. The white dress symbolises purity and well, needless to say, no-one’s buying what it stands for anymore; mainly because it’s very outdated and a bit sexist. But white wedding dresses are just the done thing - they look stunning and are simply the quintessential wedding dress.
The traditional British wedding dress is a flowing white number, often with a long train and lace detailing. The bride will often wear a veil and hold a bouquet. However, more and more people are bucking the trend. Non-traditional wedding dresses are certainly on the up and after over 170 years of white dresses, why not? It’s your day, after all.
Wedding gifts are seeing big changes at the moment but there were once a few go-to gifts that would crop up at nearly every wedding. These were mostly sets of fancy china and homeware. You could expect nice crystal glasses to drink from, a set of top-notch cookware, knife sets, crockery, cutlery, and so on.
As getting married is supposed to be a precursor to moving in together, the idea is to buy the happy couple items for their new home.
Of course, most modern couples prefer to live together before they marry because, well, it’s just good sense. This is also because people are generally marrying later in life these days, too. In fact the number of millennials that marry aged 18-30 compared to baby boomers has halved. This move to living together pre-marriage means you can expect the bride and groom to have already kitted out their home.
As a result, millennials prefer to ask for money as gifts. That may sound crass, but it’s normally for the honeymoon fund. Many millennials favour experiences over material items, so while you can’t really go wrong going down the traditional route for gifts (most of us can always use something for the house) don’t be averse to the idea of writing a cheque, instead. Better to contribute to a holiday they’ll never forget than buy them matching aprons they’ll never wear.
As for traditional wedding favours in the UK, these are small gifts that the bride and groom will get for their guests to thank them for attending. Normally, you would receive five sugared almonds that represent health, happiness, fertility, life, and wealth.
One of the highlights of most wedding receptions is the best man’s speech. There is a whole order of speeches but they typically centre around the best man.
The official order of speeches is as follows:
As you can see, this is very traditional, and this order of speeches reflects the old practice of dowries through the thanking of the bride’s parents for raising such a lovely bride, the thank you to the groom for taking her off their hands, and the best man speaking on behalf of the bridesmaids.
Nowadays, this same order of speeches more or less applies but is not quite so rigid. The best man’s speech is normally designed to make the guests laugh, with embarrassing stories and pictures of the groom typically the star of the show.
There are many weird wedding traditions around the world, but we Brits have a few odd ones too. An old Scottish tradition was to take the couple out the day before their wedding. Their loved ones would then completely soak them in alcohol. They would then be covered in flour, ash, feathers and treacle, to ward off evil spirits.
Other odd British wedding traditions are that if you find a spider in your wedding dress, it’s considered to be good luck. If you marry on a Monday, you are marrying for wealth. If you marry on a Tuesday, then you are marrying for health, and Wednesday is the ‘best’ day to get married. No one really knows why, it’s just tradition. If you marry in May, this is considered to be unlucky.
There you have it, everything you need to know in order to have a traditional British wedding. These traditions are observed more often than not, but normally with a modern spin. Gender roles aren’t enforced as strongly, and other outdated aspects of tradition have all but disappeared. There are plenty of people who avoid tradition completely and opt to make their wedding as unique as possible. Whether you observe tradition or not is, obviously, completely up to you.
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