Bridal Party 101 | History

It Takes A Community To Have A Wedding.

The Bridal Party is the Bride and Groom’s entourage chosen specifically because of their proven support of the happy couple. According to history, their duties have included anything from kidnapping to providing the bride with a dowry if the parents were disproving of the marriage. Here’s a couple of fun historical facts behind the wedding Wedding Posse– oops! Party**

“Bridesmaids and groomsmen had to dress just like the bride and groom to confuse vengeful spirit presences (or real-life jealous suitors) who might try to harm the newlyweds.”

 

This tradition seems to have changed only recently! Nowadays, there is usually subtle differentiation between the Groom and his Groomsmen, but the Bridesmaids leave the white to the Bride. We’re seeing a larger variety in color, style, and texture in bridesmaids’ dresses as each wedding season passes. It just depends on the Bride’s preference!

“In a time in which ‘marriage by capture’ was practiced, close friends of the groom would assist him in taking the bride from her family. They’d form a small army to fight off angry relatives so that he could escape with her.”

 

Thankfully this doesn’t happen anymore! Imagine women being kidnapped left and right out from under their family’s nose! (Talk about awkward table conversation at Thanksgiving…)

We understand why the need for the most important people by your side remains. Choosing the ones to support you, be that shoulder to cry on when you need it, can share in good times with you, are all top factors to your bridal party.  At the Ranch, we’ve witnessed it all.

“Ancient Roman law required 10 witnesses to be present at a wedding, which is considered a precursor to the bridal party tradition.”

Today, Bridal Parties can be as small as two people and as large as 30–as long as the MOH and Best Man have some good organizational skills! We say the more, the merrier, it adds a little energy to the event as a whole, and you know the dance floor will never be empty.

“The tradition of the ‘best man’ is thought to have originated with the Germanic Goths of the 16th century.”

“He was the ‘best man’ for, specifically, the job of stealing the bride from her neighboring community or disapproving family, and he was probably the best swordsman, too.”

 

Consider this, gentlemen: is your Best Man willing to fight to the death for your love?

“In some early traditions, the groomsmen were called Bride’s Knights because they helped protect her—and her dowry, and her virginity—or because they assisted in her kidnapping.”

Kidnapping seems to have been pretty prevalent back in the day, but it’s not just the Groomsmen who are known to get into some mischief during the Bachelor/Bachelorette parties anymore. (Hollywood made a few movies about all that.) Although we would never promote kidnapping, we’re sure some good clean inner-party fun is still had.

Thanks to all these fun Bridal Parties and the awesome photographers who captured them at their best!

We love seeing what each unique group is like and how the clients we’ve gotten to know so well fit into the crazy mix.

As always, big thanks go out to the staff at Personal Touch Dining, who Coordinate, Manage, and cater to all these wonderful events!

To learn more about weddings traditions and their origins, check out these two articles:

’21 Surprising Historical Duties of the Wedding Party’ by Jen Doll

‘A History of Anglo-Saxon Wedding Customs‘ by Arden Ranger