Tradition of Throwing a Bouquet at a Wedding. Is It Possible to Throw Your Own and How to Do It in an Original Way? We Are Looking for an Alternative

The bride’s bou­quet, per­haps, delights those present at the wed­ding no less than the wed­ding dress. Few peo­ple know, but many years ago the wed­ding bou­quet was com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent from the mod­ern ver­sion. Flow­ers were not used at all, the bride walked to the altar with three ears of wheat. The bou­quet served as a tal­is­man. It served as a kind of pro­tec­tion for the bride from neg­a­tive ener­gy, and it was by no means allowed to pass it on to any­one. The tra­di­tion of throw­ing the bride’s bou­quet to her unmar­ried girl­friends appeared rel­a­tive­ly recent­ly.

No one knows how the tra­di­tion of throw­ing a wed­ding bou­quet to unmar­ried women appeared, but a lot of assump­tions have accu­mu­lat­ed. Accord­ing to one of them, in many coun­tries the wed­ding bou­quet was a sym­bol of a hap­py life and suc­cess. Nat­u­ral­ly, every­one present at the cel­e­bra­tion sought to receive it. Sub­se­quent­ly, it acquired a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent mean­ing, which is famil­iar to all of us: the def­i­n­i­tion of a future bride.

Today, the tra­di­tion of throw­ing a bou­quet is used as an inno­cent enter­tain­ment. There are no spe­cif­ic rules, and this can be done at any time con­ve­nient for the bride and groom. For exam­ple, after leav­ing the reg­istry office, dur­ing a pho­to ses­sion or a walk, at the begin­ning of a ban­quet, or when the cel­e­bra­tion comes to an end.

As a rule, most invit­ed hosts try to sched­ule the tra­di­tion before the end of the ban­quet in order to avoid pos­si­ble embar­rass­ment with already drunk guests. In addi­tion, this moment is a kind of cul­mi­na­tion of the whole evening, and there­fore should be well orga­nized.

The facil­i­ta­tor must make sure that all the par­tic­i­pants are in place by catch­ing the bou­quet. There­fore, it is advis­able to announce the upcom­ing com­pe­ti­tion a cou­ple of min­utes before it starts and explain the rules in detail to oth­ers. First of all, the bride is invit­ed, who must show all the guests her beau­ti­ful bou­quet and answer the tricky ques­tion about who will catch the bou­quet that evening. Then all female rep­re­sen­ta­tives who have not yet mar­ried are invit­ed.

For unmar­ried friends of the groom, there is a sim­i­lar enter­tain­ment with throw­ing a garter, which is pre­vi­ous­ly removed from the bride’s grace­ful legs. The man who caught the garter, accord­ing to tra­di­tion, will soon meet his soul mate and mar­ry her.

If there are no unmar­ried ladies at the cel­e­bra­tion, then the bride should give a bou­quet to the first unmar­ried girl she meets on the way to the ban­quet. Or you can do it more roman­ti­cal­ly and let the wed­ding bou­quet down the riv­er. If one unmar­ried girl is present at the cel­e­bra­tion, then the bride should sim­ply give her a wed­ding bou­quet, say­ing a few kind words.

The tra­di­tion of throw­ing the wed­ding bou­quet came to us from the West, and appeared in Amer­i­ca. In France, for exam­ple, the bride, after her mar­riage has been reg­is­tered, goes to the tem­ple with the groom and gives flow­ers to one of the saints. This is done as a token of grat­i­tude for the fact that heav­en­ly angels allowed two earth­ly lovers to meet and unite in a last­ing union. In the UK, there is anoth­er tra­di­tion, accord­ing to which the wed­ding bou­quet should be placed at one of the mon­u­ments.

When plan­ning a wed­ding cel­e­bra­tion, new­ly­weds are increas­ing­ly mov­ing away from this tra­di­tion, mak­ing a choice in favor of more orig­i­nal solu­tions. In this regard, many vari­a­tions have appeared over the past few years. Among them there are suc­cess­ful ones, and they are wide­ly used.

• The first alter­na­tive tra­di­tion is the use of rib­bons. The wed­ding bou­quet is still involved in this action. Beau­ti­ful satin rib­bons, which were cho­sen in the same col­or scheme as the wed­ding dec­o­ra­tions, are tied to the bou­quet. The high­light of this method is that only one rib­bon is tied, the bride holds the rest with her hand. She and all the unmar­ried ladies stand in a cir­cle. Stretch­ing out her hand with a bou­quet, the bride gives the par­tic­i­pants the oppor­tu­ni­ty to choose a rib­bon for them­selves. At the sig­nal of the pre­sen­ter, all par­tic­i­pants pull the rib­bon, and the one whose rib­bon remains in the bride’s hand becomes the win­ner of this com­pe­ti­tion. It is she who, accord­ing to tra­di­tion, will be the next to mar­ry.

• An inter­est­ing and rather orig­i­nal alter­na­tive to the tra­di­tion­al throw­ing of the bride’s wed­ding bou­quet is method using a chest. A wed­ding bou­quet is placed in it and locked with a key. Then the key is placed in a satin bag or some beau­ti­ful con­tain­er and mixed with keys that do not fit the lock. Each of the unmar­ried girls takes one and tries to get a wed­ding bou­quet. The one who suc­ceeds wins the com­pe­ti­tion.

• In mod­ern wed­ding cel­e­bra­tions, there was a place for ancient Russ­ian tra­di­tions, name­ly: round dance trans­fer of the bride’s bou­quet. All unmar­ried peo­ple present at the feast form a cir­cle in which the bride stands in the mid­dle. Then rhyth­mic music is turned on, and the par­tic­i­pants begin to lead a round dance. Mean­while, the bride is spin­ning in the oppo­site direc­tion. This method is one of the most com­pet­i­tive, because, antic­i­pat­ing the trans­fer of the bou­quet, some brides­maids begin to move faster or slow­er, there­by cre­at­ing a cheer­ful and joy­ful atmos­phere. Turn­ing off the music will be a sig­nal that all par­tic­i­pants in the process need to stop. The girl, in front of whom the bride’s out­stretched hand with a bou­quet will be, wins the com­pe­ti­tion.

• The next way is extreme­ly touch­ing, he will show the warm atti­tude of the bride to all the ladies present at the cel­e­bra­tion. How­ev­er, it is nec­es­sary to know the exact num­ber of par­tic­i­pants in advance. The essence of this method is to cre­ate sev­er­al iden­ti­cal flower arrange­ments and com­bine them into one so that it looks like a whole bou­quet. When the bride throws the wed­ding bou­quet, it will be divid­ed into sev­er­al parts, and each of the par­tic­i­pants will be the win­ner.

• Accord­ing to the fol­low­ing method, all respon­si­bil­i­ty pass­es to luck or chance. Each unmar­ried girl is giv­en the oppor­tu­ni­ty to write her name on paper. After that, the pieces of paper are mixed in a glass jar. The task of the bride is only to pull out a piece of paper and give a bou­quet to the one whose name is indi­cat­ed on it.
• An extreme­ly orig­i­nal way of pre­sent­ing a flower arrange­ment into the hands of a brides­maid is using a large sling­shot. Despite the appar­ent dan­ger of the process, every­thing is pret­ty harm­less. Two of the men invit­ed to the wed­ding hold a pre-made large sling­shot while the bride pulls on a rub­ber band and throws flow­ers. This moment will def­i­nite­ly become a bright and mem­o­rable event that guests will remem­ber for a very long time. Don’t for­get to take some col­or­ful pho­tos.
• An inter­est­ing alter­na­tive is cre­at­ing a smart job. Each girl will be asked to answer a few play­ful ques­tions about fam­i­ly life. The active girl her­self is giv­en a bou­quet with warm part­ing words.

• The fol­low­ing method has not yet gained wide pop­u­lar­i­ty, but you can sur­prise those present with an orig­i­nal approach. On the soles of the bride’s shoes, the names of all the girls par­tic­i­pat­ing in the com­pe­ti­tion are writ­ten with a felt-tip pen. Dur­ing the entire cel­e­bra­tion, all guests and the bride her­self are for­bid­den to look at the back of the shoes. At the end of the cel­e­bra­tion, the host and the bride decide which name will be cho­sen: the one that has been erased the most or the least. The bride gives flow­ers to the win­ner.

Speak­ing about alter­na­tive meth­ods of trans­fer­ring a flower arrange­ment from a bride to an unmar­ried girl, it is worth men­tion­ing the orig­i­nal types of wed­ding bou­quets. For exam­ple, few peo­ple know, but a dou­ble bou­quet is often used for the com­pe­ti­tion, designed to replace the orig­i­nal. It is com­plete­ly iden­ti­cal to what the bride holds dur­ing the entire wed­ding cer­e­mo­ny.

As a rule, such a bou­quet weighs much lighter than the orig­i­nal. This is due to the fact that the dupli­cate bou­quet, although it looks the same as the orig­i­nal one, is much small­er in size. Florists try to light­en it as much as pos­si­ble, so that it would be eas­i­er for the bride to throw it up.

Accord­ing to anoth­er tra­di­tion, the bride, in order to remain hap­py in mar­riage, should not part with the flow­ers that were with her dur­ing the wed­ding cer­e­mo­ny through­out the entire cel­e­bra­tion. There is a belief that flow­ers absorb the pos­i­tive ener­gy com­ing from two hearts in love and should not be passed on to any­one.

The design of the bou­quet is lim­it­ed only by the imag­i­na­tion of the bride. But tra­di­tion­al­ly it is cus­tom­ary to tie a small bag to the flow­ers, into which cof­fee beans, tea or the bride’s favorite sweets will be poured. This is a kind of hint that the future bride will invite her friend to vis­it. How­ev­er, this tra­di­tion is com­plete­ly option­al and is only a whim of the bride her­self. And you can also add a flower arrange­ment with any dec­o­ra­tive orna­ments.

On the ver­sion of the ori­gin of the wed­ding bou­quet, see below.