The invented ones

• A diamond is foreverWhy are diamonds the engagement ring?In 1938 a mining cartel hired an ad agency to make a stone "a psychological necessity." An unmarried copywriter wrote four words at three in the morning.
  Invented · 1938
• The garter tossWhere did the garter toss come from?Seventeenth-century Englishmen did steal the bride’s garters. The staged toss at a reception is 1950s America, and a fashion historian can find nothing earlier.
  Invented · mid-1950s
• The man’s ringWhen did men start wearing wedding rings?In 1926 the jewelers tried to sell men an engagement ring. It flopped. Then a war came, and they tried again.
  Invented · 1940s
• The unity candleWhere did the unity candle come from, and the sand ceremony?Not from General Hospital. Not from the church, which keeps trying to ban it. From 1970s America, and from a catalog that sold one for second marriages at $89.
  Invented · 1970s
• The registryWhere did the wedding registry come from?A Chicago department store in 1924, a bar-code scanner in 1993, and a century of china patterns before anyone asked for cash.
  Invented · 1924

The rebranded ones

• The white dressWhy do brides wear white?Victoria did not invent it. She made it famous, two hundred lacemakers made it possible, and a magazine made it "ancient" nine years later.
  Rebranded · 1840
• The vein of loveWhy is the wedding ring worn on the fourth finger of the left hand?A Roman scholar heard that Egyptian surgeons found a nerve running from that finger to the heart. Nobody has found it since.
  Rebranded · c. AD 170
• The honey moonWhere does the word "honeymoon" come from?Not from a month of mead. From a sixteenth-century joke about how fast the sweetness wears off.
  Rebranded · 1546
• Jumping the broomWhere does jumping the broom come from?A Flemish painting, a Welsh hillside, and a hundred voices recorded in 1937. The West African origin story has no source. The ritual belongs to the people who kept it anyway.
  Real · 1559, and 1937 in the words of those who did it
• The veilWhy do brides wear veils?The Roman one was egg-yolk yellow and belonged to a priestess. The "hiding from evil spirits" story has no source. Jacob is the reason the groom looks first.
  Rebranded · Rome
• The bridesmaidsWhy do we have bridesmaids, and why do they dress alike?Roman law wanted ten witnesses for one kind of wedding. Victoria drew twelve white dresses herself. The "decoys against evil spirits" story has no source.
  Rebranded · 1840
• HandfastingWhat is a handfasting, and is it really ancient?The word is a handshake. The "year and a day" trial marriage was invented by a travel writer and a novelist. The ribbon is from about 2005.
  Rebranded · 2000s (the cord); medieval (the word)

The ceremony itself

• Something blueWhere does "something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue" come from?Victorian Lancashire, 1871, and it was already being called "ancient custom" by 1876. The sixpence came later.
  Real · 1871
• Given awayWhy does the father give the bride away?The question is in the 1549 prayer book. The law that made a wife legally vanish is in Blackstone. The Church of England quietly made it optional in 2000.
  Real · 1549
• Throwing riceWhy do we throw rice at weddings, and does it hurt birds?The Romans threw nuts. The English threw wheat. The birds are fine, and a Cornell ornithologist, a Connecticut legislator and Ann Landers all have a part in why you think otherwise.
  Real · 1600s (wheat); the bird scare, 1985

Around the world

• The glassWhy is a glass broken at a Jewish wedding, and what is a chuppah?Two fathers in the Talmud smashed expensive cups to sober up the rabbis. The Temple meaning came centuries later. The canopy on poles is sixteenth century.
  Real · Talmud (the glass); 1500s (the canopy)
• The seven stepsWhat are the seven steps (saptapadi) in a Hindu wedding?Sap, juice, wealth, comfort, offspring, seasons, friendship. The oldest wedding words still spoken, and the moment Indian law says the marriage is complete.
  Real · Vedic
• El lazo y las arrasWhat are el lazo and las arras?Thirteen coins and a rope shaped like an eight, blessed in an eleventh-century Spanish sacramentary and written into the American Catholic rite in 2016.
  Real · 11th century

Through time

• The bill, 1939 to nowHow much did a wedding cost in 1950, and who paid?A sociologist counted in 1939: a quarter of a year’s income, and only seven in ten held a reception. Emily Post said the bride’s parents paid for everything. Today’s "average" is a mean from a self-selected survey.
  Half and half · 1939 (the first count)
• Here comes the brideWhere does "Here Comes the Bride" come from?A Wagner opera in which the marriage collapses on the wedding night, a Mendelssohn play score, and a seventeen-year-old princess in 1858. Wagner was not even played at her ceremony.
  Rebranded · 1858
• Rome, and the thresholdHow did Romans get married, and why is the bride carried over the threshold?Three kinds of Roman marriage, a joined right hand carved on a thousand coffins, and Plutarch’s three guesses about the doorway, none of which involves tripping.
  Real · c. AD 100 (Plutarch’s note)