Hi and welcome to Mental Floss. I’m Erin McCarthy, and today we’re going to talk
about weddings. This episode is presented by Discover. Let’s get started.
We’ll start with the history of weddings, which is...lacking detail...because they’re
pretty old. It’s believed that the first dowry was exchanged around 3000 BCE. The ancient
Egyptians, Aztecs, and Incas all had dowries. And there’s evidence of a marriage ceremony
from 2350 BCE in Mesopotamia.
So marriages, and ways to commemorate them, have existed for pretty much as long as civilizations
have. There were weddings in China, including gifts and receptions, going back to the third
century BCE. And in ancient Rome, marriages were celebrated with parties or banquets.
They actually had a lot of the key components of a modern wedding: families attended, there
were gifts (or a dowry), and the couple kissed. Also a contract was signed, which was probably the most
romantic part.
Jumping forward in time a bit, the Roman Catholic Church got involved in the marriage business
around the 8th century CE. That’s when marriage started to be considered a sacrament, which
was made canon law in 1563 at the Council of Trent. A couple centuries later, The Marriage
Act 1753 went into effect in England and Wales. This made it illegal to get married in secret.
Informal marriages had been part of those societies, but the government wanted to get
the law involved. Brides and grooms were required to sign a marriage register. If they couldn’t
write, they had to make some kind of mark on it.
As for attire at these early weddings, until the mid-1800s, a bride just wore the nicest
thing she owned. It was important to seem like she came from a rich family. Remember:
dowries and marriage have been intertwined since the very beginning. So, she’d wear
her nicest clothes, which could include many layers of material like fur, silk, and velvet.
Around 1840, white became the trendy dress color in the west.
According to a 2017 survey, the average cost of a wedding in the U.S. was $30,000. $30,000
is a lot of money, but rest assured: You don’t have to spend all that to have an incredible
wedding. These tips and tricks brought to you by Discover will help you save big on your big day.
The first step you should take when planning your wedding? Check your credit score.
When it comes to paying for a wedding and starting a life with your future spouse,
It is important to have a mutual understanding of your credit scores and finances.
Before you start booking that swing band, head on over to Discover Free Credit
Scorecard, where you can check your credit score for free, even if you're not a customer.
Now that your finances are in order, time to get planning.
Consider getting married on a Friday or a Sunday: Venues often charge more for Saturday
weddings, while booking on an “off night” could get you discounts on everything from
the space itself to the catering. Another easy way to save money is to consider getting married in the “off” season.
In many parts of the country, wedding season runs from April to June and September to November. Outside of those months, venues are less expensive.
Skip the open bar: Alcohol is one of the biggest wedding expenses, especially if you’re doing
an open bar. But there are more budget friendly options that your guests will still enjoy,
like wine and beer packages that include signature cocktails. If you really want to save money,
buy the alcohol yourself—you won’t be subject to markups from the caterers, and
you can likely return what you don’t use.
Think outside the box when it comes to dessert: Wedding cakes are pricey—the average cost
is $540. So you can save some money by going with something less traditional, like pie
or cupcakes. If you have your heart set on a cake, buy one from the store and dress it
up with flowers.
Order wholesale flowers to make your own centerpieces: Your bouquets will be in basically every photo
from your wedding, so you might want to go with a professional there. But you can definitely
order flowers from wholesale vendors and DIY your centerpieces with some friends to save
some money.
Hire a day-of coordinator instead of a wedding planner: It might be tempting to hire a person
to plan the whole shebang for you, but if you’re on a budget, find a day-of coordinator
instead. They’ll be less expensive and can still handle logistics for you so you can
save and truly enjoy your big day. Before you hire someone, though, check with your
caterer and venue to see if they’ll have a day-of coordinator on-hand that’s included
in your fee
Planning a wedding might seem like a daunting task—especially when you’re creating a
budget and figuring out how to pay for it. Before utilizing any of our thrifty steps,
your first stop should be keeping up-to-date on your credit score. Discover’s Free Credit
Scorecard will let you check your latest number and won’t impact your score. It’s totally
free, even if you aren’t a Discover customer. Check yours in seconds. Visit Discover.com
to learn more.
Now let’s move on to some facts about weddings.
In Finland, it was once customary for the bride to collect the wedding gifts herself
by going door-to-door with a pillowcase. Hopefully no cookware sets were involved.
In Yemen, the groom’s father traditionally scatters raisins, representing the couple’s
happiness, which the guests collect.
During the Middle Ages, brides had herbs and garlic in their bouquets due to a superstition
that it staved off evil.
In 2011, a woman in England found her wedding ring on a carrot in her garden after losing
it sixteen years earlier. She took the ring off while baking in 1995, then after years
of looking, she found it while pulling carrots in her yard.
In 1947, a woman got married in a dress made partially from a nylon parachute. Her groom
had used the parachute to save his own life during World War II. And she, along with a
seamstress, turned it into a wedding dress. Her son’s wife went on to wear it at her
wedding.
Royal Weddings are partially paid for by the Royal Family. But British taxpayers handle
the security costs. So the 2011 Royal Wedding cost $34 million, but an estimated $32 million
of that was for security.
There are some practices that you might not know are sometimes considered bad wedding
etiquette. Like, wearing something fancy in your hair, which is supposed to be the bride’s
thing. Or bringing a large gift that will be difficult for the couple to take out of
the venue and fit into a car with everything else. If it’s super bulky -- you should
mail it. Also, it might not be the best idea to take pictures of the couple at the ceremony
and immediately post them on social media. Make sure you pay attention to any announcements
regarding photography.
Since the 1950s, it has been legal to marry a dead person in France (after approval from
the President and the Justice Minister). The catch is: you have to show that you were already
planning a marriage with the person when they died.
And in Texas, it’s legal to marry someone who isn’t in the same place as you. This
was important to a couple in 2003 who wed while she was on the ground and he was in
the international space station, orbiting the earth. He said his vows over video chat.
But, she did have a cardboard cutout of him attend the reception.
One common big question related to wedding traditions is: why do bridesmaids wear matching
dresses?
So bridal parties have been around since ancient Rome, where there was a law that ten people
had to witness each wedding. From these very early days, bridesmaids dressed the same...as
the bride.
They were meant to act as a confusing distraction during the ceremony for evil spirits or men
who’d been rejected by the bride. If anyone tried to interrupt the wedding, they would
hopefully become disoriented by all of the matching outfits. At least long enough for
the marriage to become official (and officially not cursed). This is also why brides started
wearing veils. It made them less recognizable to mean-spirited wedding crashers. Early weddings
involved a surprising amount of intentional bride-disguising.
Anyway, a similar tradition of matching bridesmaids grew in feudal China for the same reason.
And in both places, the bride and her bridesmaids may have travelled long distances to get to
the groom and his family. So on some of these longer journeys, the “fake brides” may
have been more necessary.
Then, in the Victorian era, brides started dressing up more than their bridesmaids, but
the bridesmaid tradition had stuck. They continued to wear the same outfit. Back then, their
uniform was a white dress with a veil that was shorter than the bride’s fancy long
one.
We’re going to finish up with wedding cakes.
There’s documentation of special wedding carbs from the first century CE. Biographer
of Alexander the Great, Quintus Curtius, wrote that Alexander’s father-in-law “ordered
bread to be brought...for this was the most sacred symbol of betrothal among the Macedonians.
The bread was cut with a sword and both men tasted it.”
That wasn’t too different from the wheat or barley cakes of the early Roman weddings.
The bride had cake hit over her head, then her husband ate the morsels. This was meant
to represent sharing.
Before the twentieth century, cakes with one tier were standard unless you were royalty
or extremely wealthy. As for where tiers came from, the story goes that they were invented
by a baker’s apprentice in the 18th century in London. He proposed to his boss’s daughter
with a tiered cake.
In 17th century England, a tradition started in which weddings had both a “bride cake”
and a smaller “black cake” for the groom. The bride’s cake typically had white icing;
it’s the one we’re familiar with today. The groom’s cake was mostly phased out over
time.
And that white icing said a lot about a couple. In the mid-sixteenth century in England, sugar
was becoming more prominent than ever. Around this time, whiter cakes meant the family had
more money because whiter sugar was more refined and expensive.
In Victorian times, people saved a slice of their wedding cake to put on their first baby’s
christening cake.
Nowadays, you can buy a cake made mostly out of Styrofoam to save money. Companies will
include some real cake for the cake cutting tradition, then serve regular cake from the
kitchen.
Cake toppers are a newer part of the wedding cake world. They were popularized in the 1950s
in the United States.
And finally, $75 million is the record for the most expensive wedding cake.
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