Friday, February 13, 2009

Superstitious?

Welcome to Friday the 13th.

When I saw the date of my blog post, I laughed. Every time I think of wedding superstitions I think of my Aunt Phyllis. It's a tradition in our area to have a big, family-oriented wedding, which ends with a bridal dance. A polka. People pay at least a dollar to dance for approximately fifteen seconds with the bride. After your dance you're handed a piece of wedding cake and a shot of whiskey. When the line is down to only one or two people, the groom runs in, sweeps the bride off her feet and carries her out to the waiting car and off they go on their honeymoon.

It's a big rowdy fun tradition, but my Aunt Phillis's family also added a bit to the tradition. They believed it was good luck to take one of the bride's shoes. I'm not entirely sure how walking with only one shoe made a bride lucky, but Aunt Phyllis saw the point and she took one of my shoes.

Now, what I neglected to tell you was that my husband and I were married in a blizzard. So when she took my shoe, one of my feet was bare. Didn't matter. My husband was carrying me to the car. But we slammed into a snow drift and I couldn't even get out of the car...considering that I didn't have two shoes.

http://www.blissweddings.com/library/superstitions2.asp lists a hundred or so wedding superstitions that I thought were amazing! I'm not a fan of the negative ones...Like if it rains on your wedding day you'll cry through most of your marriage. I'm a bigger fan of the positive ones. Like arrange all your bows from your gifts around the door of your first house and it will bring you luck. It's not very convenient if you're in a family that likes to give money...but maybe you could ask everybody to put a ribbon on their cold, hard cash.

Another of my favorite superstitions is the one about saying vows when the minute hand of the clock is moving upward. To say the vows when the hand is pointing down is bad luck...but say them when the hand is pointed up...and guess what? You'll work together. Not sure how someone figured all that out.

Someone submitted that it was bad luck to receive knives as a wedding gift. I laughed when I read that because at my niece's shower, all the little girls of the family were seated in front of Kelli, adordingly watching her as she opened gifts. When she came to a lovely set of knives, one of the girls gasped and said, "Oh my mom says it's not good to give knives to newlyweds. It's too tempting for them to kill each other." My sister has never lived that one down.

Someone from Houston, Texas submitted that it was good luck for a bride to be kissed by a chimney sweep on her wedding day. Really? Her groom won't mind? LOL Or how about having the housecat eat out of your left shoe for good luck? Hummmm.....I'm thinking that one might have started in the days when finding a mouse in your shoe was a possibility.

Chinese superstition says that carrying a red umbrella over the head of the bride wards off evil spirits, while another claims that the rice you throw is to distract them and third claims that bridesmaids are dressed up to confuse evil spirits, so they won't know which person is the bride.

Have you ever heard that you're not supposed to let another woman try on your engagement ring? I actually worked with a few gals who wouldn't let anyone even touch their rings. Now I know why. Apparently, if another woman tries on your ring, she'll steal your finacee! LOL

I had a bit of a laugh reading some of these, but I have to confess that my husband and I have been very happily married for decades and I can't help but wonder if Aunt Phyllis didn't give us a shove in the lucky direction when she took my shoe!

susan

posted by Susan @ 3:45 AM