Tradition

My mother is a reader and from the womb to bedtime stories she always read to me.  Inevitably I picked up the habit and find it to be one of my favorite things to do.  In high school I would read up on interesting facts, things my friends deemed as “random information Krystal added to the conversation.”  However, whenever I added my so called random information the responses were always, “really? No way.  How do you know that?  I never knew that.”  Of course you didn’t know, that’s what I’m here for, and when we all get stranded on some island after a boating accident or something I’m the friend you want with you because all my “useless facts” will miraculously be useful.

This weekend was my first Catholic wedding as a planner.  Tammy went over all the traditional aspects with me that I should expect for the ceremony, which then led into some facts I had stashed away that I was oh so excited To share!  And after her many years in service go figure that I surprised her with a few “useful facts” things.

Bouquets.  This tradition started way way WAY back in the day when people only took yearly baths, a bride would use a bouquet of flowers to help make her smell good.  Because getting married wasn’t special enough of an occasion to break the annual only bath, right.

Bridesmaids.  A group of women would dress like the bride to confuse any bad spirits or enemies that were trying to hurt the bride. Nothing like taking one for the team.

Ring finger. People believed that the fourth finger on your left hand had a direct blood line to your heart.  Hey, pull my finger!

The list goes on and on.  And the list of traditions for a Catholic ceremony wedding goes on and on, but the kicker was that not all Catholic churches follow the same traditions, each church varies.  The most noticeable things to me while putting this wedding together that were different from non Catholic weddings were (1) having “Readers” on program, a Biblical passage is read about marriage. (2) Whether or not the ceremony will take place with or without a Mass.  (3) And having the bridal party sitting, kneeling, and standing. Now by no means do I claim to have all knowledge, or even a lot of knowledge on Catholic wedding ceremonies, but I learned enough by way of Tammy and some intense Google research to understand all the traditions and practices of the ceremony.

Traditions are important; they help us to nonverbally pass along legacy and beliefs.  However, in following traditions the WHY has an even greater responsibility because times change.  No one is going around only taking one bath per 300+ days.  I feel like that’s a safe assumption anyway. Yet brides continue to walk down the aisle flowers in hand.

 

Dropping knowledge:

The average human head sheds about 80 strands of hair a day.

The veil was originally intended to hide the bride’s face so that the groom would not know that the family had swapped out the bride for another sister or family member.

 

xoxo Krystal