Why Does A Bride Traditionally Throw Her Bouquet?

There are a lot of traditions and superstitions that are found during a wedding, from choosing certain floral designs to give the couple good luck in their marriage, to the first dance, the rings and the cutting of the cake.

One of the most fascinating and unusual of these is the bride taking the bouquet she has been carrying for the entire ceremony and tossing it behind her back into a crowd of excited guests, and tradition claims that whoever catches it will be the next to be married.

Whilst there have been claims that the idea of throwing something into the crowd at a wedding could be traced back to the Judgement of Paris, where a golden apple was thrown into the crowd entitled “To the Fairest”, the tradition as we know it starts in the Middle Ages.

Brides were considered to be beacons of luck, and so women who were yet to be married would touch the bride to try and have some of her luck rub off on them.

This started to escalate from simply touching the bride to grabbing at her, to even trying to tear off parts of her clothing in order to take it home and get some of that good luck.

To try and distract them, the bride would throw the bouquet up into the crowd and run off to the safety of the bridal room with the groom.

Like most traditions, this quickly changed from tossing the bouquet for safety and everyone who takes home something of the bride’s receiving good luck to a contest and an event in its own right.

The bride throws it behind her back, much like she would have done to try and escape, and whoever catches the bouquet now is said to be the next person to get married, although sometimes it is a simple symbol of good fortune.