Bridal Floral Ceremonies.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Folkard, Richard
In all countries flowers have from time immemorial been chosen as the happy accompaniment of bridal ceremonies. Among the ancients it was customary to crown newly-married persons with a chaplet of red and white Roses. On arriving at the house of her husband, the Roman bride found woollen fillets round the door-posts, which were adorned with evergreens and blossoms, and anointed with the fat of wolves to avert enchantment.
In M. Barthélemi’s ‘Travels of Young Anacharsis’ the author, describing a marriage ceremony in the Island of Delos, says that the inhabitants of the island assembled at daybreak, crowned with flowers; flowers were strewn in the path of the bride and bridegroom; and the house was garlanded with them. Singers and dancers appeared crowned with Oak, Myrtles, and Hawthorn. The bride and bridegroom were crowned with Poppies, and upon their approach to the temple, a priest received them at the entrance, and presented to each a branch of Ivy—a symbol of the tie which was to unite them for ever.[6]
At Indian nuptials, the wedding wreath, the varamâlâ, united bride and bridegroom. At the marriage feasts of the Persians, a little tree is introduced, the branches of which are laden with fruit: the guests endeavour to pluck these without the bridegroom perceiving them; if successful, the latter has to make them a present; if, however, a guest fails, he has to give the bridegroom a hundred times the value of the object he sought to remove from the tree.
In Germany, among the inhabitants of Oldenburg, there exists a curious wedding custom. When the bridegroom quits his father’s roof to settle in some other town or village, he has his bed linen embroidered at the corners with flowers surmounted by a tree, on whose branches are perched cock birds: on each side of the tree are embroidered the bridegroom’s initials. In many European countries it is customary to plant before the house of a newly-married couple, one or two trees, as a symbol of the good luck wished them by their friends.