| Why Do Brides Carry Bouquets? While the bridal bouquet isn't a wedding necessity-it's still a pretty integral part of the ceremony. So where did the tradition come from? The earliest bridal bouquets didn't contain very many flowers, if any-instead, they mostly comprised herbs. According to Reader's Digest, ancient Romans were the first to adopt the practice of sending their brides down the aisle with bundles of herbs, which symbolized things like fidelity and fertility. Dill, already a known aphrodisiac at the time, was especially common in those bouquets, and it was also often served at wedding receptions to help the bride and groom prepare to consummate their bond. Garlic was sometimes used in the bouquets, too, since it was thought to protect the bride from bad luck or evil spirits. Over the following centuries, people started to introduce other flora into their wedding bouquets, flowers included. Then, during the Victorian era, floriography (the language of flowers) became a prevalent fad, and people began to send each other carefully-assembled bouquets of flowers with specific meanings. Secret flower messages fell out of fashion as the world shifted focus to World War I, but bridal bouquets never did. Learn more and check out these titles |
