Classic wedding traditions

Something borrowed, something blue… do you even know where that stuff comes from? Or do we just do it, because it’s what’s been done? Or what about the idea of rings even? Why rings and why on that particular finger? Classic wedding traditions are so embedded culturally that we barely think about them, but today we’re going to dive in and share a bit about where all of this started and how.

Your wedding day is your unique expression of your relationship and your dreams for your future together, and yet so much of what we do is more prescribed than we might even care to notice. And when you’re at a wedding where people buck these classic wedding traditions, you notice, don’t you? And people talk about it… not necessarily in a negative way, often with admiration, but still, it’s talked about.

Because we’re just so used to certain aspects of the wedding always being there. It’s a big deal when someone decides to have both parents walk them down the aisle instead of just dad. There’s usually a reason. People think it’s cute and quirky, when instead of a towering cake, there are just piles of cupcakes.

Any little difference, and again, we notice. These classic wedding traditions are a blueprint against which we, often unconsciously, compare every wedding we attend. We go around checking off the little list in our heads that we barely noticed was there.

(In contrast to traditions, you can read here about 2024 wedding trends.)

Let’s start right where we started…

Something borrowed, something blue

The full saying goes like this:

Something old, something new,
something borrowed, something blue,
and a silver sixpence in her shoe.

In this tradition’s history, the poem comes for Victorian England, late 1800s. And it represents the bride’s connection to both her past and her future.

Something old is, of course, about continuity. Something new is about hope. Something borrowed shows she has a community of people she can rely on. Something blue comes from an association of that color with purity and fidelity that actually goes all the way back to ancient Rome. And finally in this classic wedding tradition, the sixpence represents financial security and good luck.

(Here are some unique ideas for the something blue, which can often prove the most challenging out of the list.)

Classic wedding tradition of the veil

Sometimes a bride will see a veil as “too” traditional. And let us say, as your photographer, we hope you don’t make that decision. Veils add so much softness and romance to your photos. And it’s your wedding day: it’s supposed to be “extra.”

But what of this tradition’s history?

Though there’s no definitive answer as to when the veil tradition started (um… they don’t exactly hold up well; it’s not like you’ll find one on an archaeological dig. ha), experts believe it started in Ancient Rome.

And if you think a veil is too “traditional” or “conservative,” maybe the reason that the Romans wore them will float your boat: they believed that evil spirits might try to ruin their happiness so they were disguising themselves as they walked toward their groom.

Eventually, of course, they did become more and more associated with the purity and modesty of the bride.

Classic wedding traditions, thanks to Queen Victoria

Queen Victoria was quite the trend setter. (Seriously…there are so many things in our culture that started with her. Read here to see how she changed Christmas, for one example.)

When Queen Victoria got married, she did two things that we’re still doing today.

Before her, wedding dresses were all sorts of colors and styles. But she wanted lace, and she wanted the lace to really show, so she asked for her wedding gown to be white. And she might have been the original bridezilla ((teasing)) because she then let everyone know that no one else was allowed to wear white and take away from her special look.

She also was the first to put little statues of herself and her groom on the top of a wedding cake. So we have Victoria to thank for cake toppers. Though we’re betting that hers were much better than the standard versions we usually see. (We’re picturing actual true-to-life little sculptures on her cake…)

Engagement and wedding rings

You might think that of all things it would be rings that would be the epitome of classic wedding traditions. And you’d be pretty much right.

This tradition goes back at least 3,000 years to ancient Egyptian pharaohs. They would often wear a ring of the ouroboros, a serpent swallowing its own tail, representing the continuity of all things. But just the plain ring was also used because a circle has no beginning and no end.

It was then the Greeks who started the tradition of giving a ring to a loved one to represent devotion. You could say this was the beginning of the engagement ring.

We wear these rings on the ring finger of the left hand because Ancient Egyptians believed there was a “vena amoris” or “vein of love” that ran from that finger directly to the heart.

Fast forward to medieval times and people started to put precious gems in the rings. Each gem had a particular meaning, and they weren’t limiting themselves to diamonds at that point in the history of engagement rings.

And believe it or not, the first diamond engagement ring was a gift from one royal to another all the way back in 1477. Eventually, again during the reign of Queen Victoria, diamond engagement rings became more and more popular and more and more ornate due to Victoria’s love of diamond jewelry in general.

Diamonds became the engagement ring in the 1940s after DeBeers did a massive advertising campaign. But what’s old eventually becomes new again and not everyone wants a diamond; you’ll see people wearing all sorts of stones for their engagement and wedding rings.

Classic versus New

Where do you stand with all of this? Are you going to try to incorporate as much tradition into your wedding as possible or are you going to eschew tradition and go for as unique as possible? Neither is better, of course, and we love it all.