Wedding Traditions – Rice Throwing – Wedding Stories

Wedding traditions – Rise throwing

Wedding Traditions - Rise Throwing

We’re all familiar with this wonderfully celebrative image: The newlyweds leave their wedding ceremony venue; step outside in the glistening sun, where all their wedding guests are lined up in two rows to create a people passage. The newlywed couple is smiling their biggest, whitest smiles, glowing whilst passing all their loved ones. They’re holding hands. With the other free hands however, they are trying to protect their smiling faces from the large amount of rather painful rice grains falling down on their heads and shoulders thrown at them by those same wedding guests. There are plenty of wedding traditions and rice throwing is one of them. It seems like a great idea at first but there are certain factors to consider.

Right. So why the rice throwing (as one of many wedding traditions), one might wonder.. After some research it actually appears to be quite an oldie among all wedding traditions, dating all the way back to ancient Rome. Rice was considered to be a ‘life giving’ seed. Therefore throwing this on a newlywed couple meant blessing them with fertility, good luck and lots of kids. It would symbolize prosperity and healthy harvests coming from their land. However, nowadays many venues don’t even allow rice throwing, because (1) it is claimed to be harmful to birds and (2) because those little grains might get slippery (true, always keep the grandmothers and aunties in mind) and (3) it’s hard to clean up afterwards.

So the best advice to those who want to keep the wedding traditions, in this case throwing something on the newlywed’s heads, is to opt for something that’s less hard and less likely to end up inside the perfectly fitted wedding dress, the perfectly styled wedding hair or (oh the horror) perfectly make-upped eyes. Therefore, think for example fresh and colorful flower petals, confetti, lavender or ribbons. These options will probably look even more festive in the wedding pictures and are less likely to be harmful to the bride and groom or the birds 🙂

More on Wedding Traditions and Superstitions: https://www.theknot.com/content/wedding-traditions-superstitions-facts-trivia