I read recently that brides and grooms are getting away from certain wedding traditions and surprisingly or not, tossing the garter and bouquet are just such traditions often being abandoned.

The reasoning: removal of the garter is a little on the risqué side as people stand around while a new husband disappears under his wife’s gown to fetch the lacy item. Brides have been making this easier over the years by having a second garter to toss and by making sure that it’s low enough on her leg. But it’s still a component of receptions for most weddings and here’s why….

The wedding garter tradition originated in the Dark Ages. In Wedding Customs Then and Now, published in 1919, Carl Holliday paints the following picture of medieval England: “The brides-maids start with the weary bride to the wedding chamber when suddenly the cry arises, ‘Get her garter!’ If the woman has been thoughtful, she has fastened it loosely to the bottom of her dress so that it drags in plain view of the scrambling ruffians; if she has not been a wise virgin, she may find her clothes in rags after the struggle.”

For a guest, having a tatter of the bride’s dress was considered good luck. Traditions around this stuck. Women in the middle ages also gave away the flowers in their hair and sometimes handkerchief-sized pieces of veil. For the recipient, it was indeed a good omen for their own matrimony.

While considered good luck, the sense of being under attack was NOT popular with brides, so they began throwing their bouquets into the crowds to distract people. They could then make a break for it with their husband to the bridal chamber. The groom would open the door and toss out the garter once the couple was inside.

Over the years, this act of distraction has turned into a tradition meant for the bride to pass on her good fortune to one single lady. Whoever catches the bouquet at a wedding is thought to be the next lady in line to wed.

The reason that brides are getting away from this tradition has more to do with saving time and embarrassment. As couples wait longer to get married, their single friends do NOT want to stand around in that posture of “please Lady Luck, shine your light on ME!” And with the bouquet, so is going the garter toss. Couples would rather keep dancing than interrupt the reception fun with another planned moment.

All of that said, those who decide to keep these two traditions alive at their ceremonies tend to keep it fun ad tasteful. They don’t over-imbibe and then go garter diving in front of grandparents and distant relatives. And DJs don’t necessarily call out the single ladies – it’s just a light moment toward the end of the night. Regardless, what happens with both of these traditions at people’s weddings is talked about long after we’ve packed up our cameras. Weddings are a celebration, after all, right?

We love family portraits whether they are set in the studio, the great outdoors, a specific location like the mountains or high country, or on our property in our outdoor portrait garden. Pixels on Paper photographs, engagements and weddings, brides, and special events and portraits  of all kinds in our Wilkesboro, NC studio. We would be honored to meet with you, learn about you and your family and be a part of taking special portraits that will become, we hope, family heirlooms.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License All photos are ©2019 Pixels On Paper. Do not copy, crop, or remove watermark.

“With this ring, I thee wed.” So begin the vows that we recite at wedding ceremonies in one form or another. It’s a tender moment and is one of the most important aspects of the joining of two people. But why rings? Why give them and why wear them and what do they mean? Here’s a little history tour with some of our favorite images of Pixels couples and their wedding rings.

Historians say that the first rings were probably given around 3000 years ago in Egypt. Scrolls depict a man and woman giving each other braided rings of hemp or reeds to show commitment, love and a circling of each other without end. These soon were made from bone or ivory or stronger substances that would last longer.

It was the Romans, however, who fashioned them out of metal for the first time. Leave it to the Romans, right? What DIDN’T they devise? In ancient Rome, a groom would place a metal ring on the hand of his bride to symbolize strength and endurance as well as commitment. And it was the Romans who chose the fourth finger of the left hand. They believed that that particular finger contained the vena amoris, or the vein of love.

Christians are said to have chosen the fourth finger, because as the priest completed the vows he would say, “in the name of the father, son and holy spirit,” touching the ring to the thumb, pointer and middle fingers. When he said “Amen” he would then slip the ring on the bride’s finger to complete the vow. In Europe, rings are worn on the right hand, but most people believe that the left hand made more sense, because most people were right-handed and the ring would be damaged less.

During the Renaissance, gimmel rings were popular, as they are a two-piece set that go together. After the couple became engaged, they would each wear one piece and then at the wedding, the groom would give his wife his ring as a sign of their commitment and the complete joining of their lives. Rings became more ornate during this period too, containing more intricate designs and jewels.

For many centuries, it was customary for the wife to wear a wedding ring, but not the husband, but war fixed that. Men who went off to fight wore wedding bands as a show of fidelity to their wives while away and civilians then took up the practice leading us to today. A ring is a sign that you are committed to another and the world should know.

In 2019, rings are made of everything from tungsten (the world’s strongest metal) to silicone (you heard me) for couples who are active and worry that metal will get damaged or their fingers while mountain biking and climbing. Most couples stick with gold and platinum while others have their rings tattooed on, but they still all mean the same thing: “I Do. Forever.”

We love family portraits whether they are set in the studio, the great outdoors, a specific location like the mountains or high country, or on our property in our outdoor portrait garden. Pixels on Paper photographs, engagements and weddings, brides, and special events and portraits  of all kinds in our Wilkesboro, NC studio. We would be honored to meet with you, learn about you and your family and be a part of taking special portraits that will become, we hope, family heirlooms.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License All photos are ©2019 Pixels On Paper. Do not copy, crop, or remove watermark.

Things are changing with wedding traditions to be sure. Lighting the unity candle is sometimes skipped over for sand ceremonies. Sending a couple off on their honeymoon with rice and bird seed has been replaced with sparklers and hand-held streamers. But cake. Who says no to cake? People are adding ice cream sandwiches and cupcakes, food trucks with themed parfaits and little bags of take-away sweet treats may sometimes replace a piece of the cake. But the cake has not gone away and I doubt it ever will.

For starters, wedding cakes are just so beautiful. Why have all of these baking shows and competitions and Cake Wars and Best Kids Baking or Kids’ Best Baking or WHATEVER Championship on the Food Network if cakes aren’t going to be a BIG part of the wedding for years to come? THAT’S WHAT I WANNA KNOW! But seriously. The fondant, the fresh flowers, the tiers, the layers and filling, the tiers ….where did it come from?

The tiered wedding cake found its origin during the Anglo-Saxon period (think: England had recently been invaded by Scandinavians, or 410 to 1066 BC) and it was a way to bring community into the couple’s celebration. Two families were joining to make one at the wedding, but the couple was also being supported and loved by their neighbors and friends. And in those days, they were feasting and sharing. People came to celebrate and to eat.

Guests would bring cakes to the wedding to share and for space, people would stack the cakes with the largest on the bottom and the littlest at the top, creating a graduated/tiered effect. You can imagine how this looked considering each cake came from a different house. Many many, years later, a Frenchman took the concept of stacking and created a cake in that same arrangement and then iced them all together into one dessert to be shared by many.

Since then, wedding cake have become more adorned, more grand, more intimate in the details, more elaborate in scale and now couples are only limited by their taste buds and the imagination of their pastry chef.

I look back at the cakes that Ryan and I have photographed and shake my head in admiration. I cannot believe the amount of detail, the hours of labor and creativity, the amount of sugar, eggs, flour and butter that have gone into every single one of these cakes… all of which were eaten and digested!! These aren’t at the Smithsonian, people.

Yum. Cake. Time to get my pans out and hit the kitchen.

We love family portraits whether they are set in the studio, the great outdoors, a specific location like the mountains or high country, or on our property in our outdoor portrait garden. Pixels on Paper photographs, engagements and weddings, brides, and special events and portraits  of all kinds in our Wilkesboro, NC studio. We would be honored to meet with you, learn about you and your family and be a part of taking special portraits that will become, we hope, family heirlooms.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States LicenseAll photos are ©2019 Pixels On Paper. Do not copy, crop, or remove watermark.

With wedding season kicking into gear in April and basically running through September, we’d like to share some thoughts and tips for those moments that you want on film, but aren’t the “Bride and Groom with Family in a row” shot. We’ll start with the big send off and sparklers have all but replaced rice and bird seed.

Sparkler wedding send-offs are quite popular, but they are not always picture perfect. Here are some tips we’ve gathered over the years to make your sparkler send-off more successful:

• Buy 36″ sparklers. They will burn longer. The average bun time is 3 minutes as opposed to the 45 seconds you get with 10″ sparklers.
• Buy less-smoke sparklers. The last thing you want is to run through a cloud of smoke and have your photos look dull and hazy. Running through smoke is best at indoor rock concerts and color powder fun runs and 10Ks.
• Smokeless wedding sparklers burn in the color gold without any added color pigments. Sparklers that have no color pigments naturally burn in the color gold and they yield a clean smokeless burn for the entire duration. The powder that manufacturers add to make a sparkler burn in various colors like red, green, or blue produce a lot of smoke as they burn. Stick with smokeless!
• Have someone coordinate all guests and have everyone in place before lighting sparklers. Designate multiple people to spread throughout and light sparklers so that all sparklers are burning at the same time when you run through.
• Light sparklers at a reasonably safe distance away from building entrance, smoke detectors and sprinkler systems. (Yes, we’ve had these go off during an exit!)
  
• If you’re having an open bar, it’s not a good idea to use sparklers. Inebriated people and fire does not go together. Enough said.
• Have multiple buckets of water or sand readily available to dispose of burnt sparklers.
• Many venues have banned the use of sparklers on premises. Be sure they’re allowed before setting your heart on a sparkler exit.

There are plenty of alternatives to sparklers as a way of ending the evening.
Set up group photos of all the guests and attendees gathered around the couple,
Distribute glow sticks,
Hand out streamers on sticks in coordinated colors,
Release paper lanterns into the sky,
Blow bubbles at the couple as they depart,
Throw flower petals,
Have the bride and grooms last dance of the night,
Set off fireworks!

All of these are beautiful and memorable options!

We love family portraits whether they are set in the studio, the great outdoors, a specific location like the mountains or high country, or on our property in our outdoor portrait garden. Pixels on Paper photographs, engagements and weddings, brides, and special events and portraits  of all kinds in our Wilkesboro, NC studio. We would be honored to meet with you, learn about you and your family and be a part of taking special portraits that will become, we hope, family heirlooms.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States LicenseAll photos are ©2019 Pixels On Paper. Do not copy, crop, or remove watermark.