When I was getting married, I became fixated on the idea of understanding why and how certain wedding traditions came about. I just simply needed to know, and it became my prerogative to make an informed decision when planning my wedding in regards to which traditions I wanted to keep or not for my own ceremony, rather than just going all the way blindly. 

So if there are more brides like me, to save you some time, I’ve compiled them all. Take a gander at the following roots of our everyday wedding traditions. Some originally were not so flattering to the institution of marriage that we have come to know now, having evolved over thousands of years.

• Did you know that the concept of Marriage first introduced itself as a solution to quell disagreements between tribes? It was also a means to exchange property.
• Another olden fact is that the ‘Groom’s Men’ were usually the best and strongest warriors in the village and would accompany a ‘Groom’ to the rival village or tribe to kidnap the ‘Bride’ of his choice.
• Bridesmaids originally dressed identically to the Bride on her wedding day for the purposes of acting as decoys and protecting the real bride from both physical and spiritual harm placed upon her by the groom’s village.

There are lots of articles about planning your ideal wedding, lots about keeping your marriage happy, lots about keeping the passion going. We focus so much on maintaining the fairy-tale, but unless you have a loving and truthful mother or father and some genuine friends (not the bitter ones) many times the truth about marriage is avoided.

My own marriage is of no consequence as to why I have decided to put this article together. I will level with you, my own marriage is young and we are still growing together despite us being a couple for 10 years. This article comes minimally from my own experience but greatly from observation. I have witnessed the marriage of many persons from the baby-boomers’ generation, along with my own parents, celebrating over 30 years of marriage, and despite the many great times there were often very difficult times. 


What we see now, frequently with persons getting married, is little thought being put towards the actual work that marriage is and only focusing on the happy-go-lucky fairytale. Our generation, thanks to faster paced technology, has become quite hard to please with very short attention spans. A lengthy marriage of 40 years that involves dedication, time and effort on both parts can be a hard concept to grasp. So instead, we forgo the practical thinking about making this decision and jump in; particularly the women, with eyes tightly shut against the future, but open only to the colour scheme of their bridal party.