A wedding is a threshold, and nearly every culture treats thresholds as dangerous and hopeful at once.
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A wedding is a threshold, and nearly every culture treats thresholds as dangerous and hopeful at once. So couples are showered with rice, tied with threads, guarded from the evil eye, handed bread and salt, or sent over a broom. This page follows the luck customs of the wedding day and what each one is meant to do.
Luck customs split into those that call something in and those that keep something out. Rice, petals, coins, sweets and flowers are thrown or offered to bring plenty and children. Noise, red cloth, kohl, a black dot on the cheek, iron, salt and bells are used to drive off envy or spirits, because a bride and groom in their finest clothes are thought to attract the evil eye. Many customs do both at once, such as the Chinese firecracker that is loud for luck and for protection.
Bread and salt in Poland, Russia and Ukraine offer a household that will never go hungry. The horseshoe hung over an Irish or English door, the Scottish sixpence in the shoe, the lucky silver coin, the Welsh lovespoon and the Italian sugared almonds (confetti) all hand the couple a small object to keep. In India a thread, a mangalsutra or a pair of toe rings marks the married woman and is also a protection. Colour matters too: red for luck in India, China and Vietnam, white for purity in the West, and yellow turmeric for blessing and cooling.
Superstitions often concern what could go wrong: rain on the day, a groom seeing the bride's dress before the ceremony, a broken mirror, a cat crossing the path, or a bride wearing pearls. Rain is welcome in many places, as a sign of fertility in parts of Hindu and Western tradition. Breaking something, a glass at a Jewish wedding or plates at a Greek one, turns a moment of fear into one of joy. Families usually treat these as play, and few will insist on them, but many couples still keep one or two.
Today the old logic is often kept as ritual and photograph. Rice has given way to petals, bubbles or dried lavender in venues that ban it, and the something old, something new rhyme is followed by couples who never think of it as a charm. Even so, mothers and grandmothers still tie the thread, hang the lemon and chilli, or slip the coin into a pocket, and most couples accept it with affection.
At many Hindu weddings the mother-in-law or an aunt puts a black dot of kajal behind the bride's ear, and the couple's wrists are tied with a sacred thread (kalava or mauli). Rice is poured into the bride's hands and thrown over the groom as a blessing of plenty.
Evil eye, being writtenAt a mehndi night, a plate of henna and lit lamps is carried to the bride, and a black thread or a pinch of kohl is often used to guard the couple. Coins and sweets are waved around the heads of bride and groom and given away, a custom called sadqa, to take the evil eye with them.
Read: MehndiRice grains, coins and flower petals are showered on the couple as they leave the church, and a pair of white doves is released at many weddings. The aras, thirteen coins blessed by the priest, are handed from groom to bride as a promise of provision.
Read: Las arrasRed is the colour of luck, so the bride wears red, firecrackers are lit, and the symbol of double happiness is cut in paper and pasted on doors. Families pick the day and hour from the almanac, and in some places a bride steps over a basin of burning charcoal to enter the new home.
Read: Double HappinessThe Shinto bride may wear the white hood tsunokakushi, and the couple share three cups of sake three times in the san-san-kudo, an act of union and blessing. Gifts and envelopes are tied with a mizuhiki knot that cannot be undone, for a marriage that will not be untied.
San-san-kudo, being writtenThe groom's family brings a horn of wine, and the wedding supra is led by a tamada who proposes toasts to the couple, ancestors and the future. A newlywed bride in some regions is welcomed at the new house with honey and bread.
Supra, being written
Jumping the broomThe couple step over a broom.
Bread and saltThe Slavic welcome for the couple.
HandfastingThe tying of the couple's hands.
Double HappinessThe Chinese wedding character.Also part of it, and being written: Evil eye (The belief that envy harms, and the charms against it.), Something old (The English rhyme of four lucky items.), Breaking glass (The Jewish breaking of a glass at the close.), Rice throwing (Grain as a wish for plenty.).
Rice is a sign of plenty and many children in the traditions that use it, from India to Europe. Some venues now ask for petals or bubbles instead because rice can be slippery and hard to clean.
It is a Western custom, tied to the days of arranged marriages when the couple might not have met. Many couples now meet for photographs first, and no one in the family usually minds.
It is the belief, found from Greece and Turkey through the Middle East to India, that envy can bring harm. Blue beads, black dots, red thread and salt are used to guard the couple.
In many cultures, including some Hindu, Irish and Western traditions, rain is said to bring fertility and good fortune. Others treat it as a bad sign, so it depends on whom you ask.
No. Most families see them as a way of including relatives and remembering the past. Many couples choose a few that mean something to them and leave the rest.
Written by the EveryShaadi desk with AI assistance. Customs differ from place to place and family to family. If this is your tradition and we have it wrong, tell us.
The traditions written up so far, best known first.
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The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
Every week: one wedding tradition from somewhere new, the wedding days coming up around the world, and one idea explained.