It is one of the most fun and anticipated highlights of the wedding: the throwing of the garter belt.
But this fun tradition had a quite painful (for the bride that is) origin.
IN Western European countries during the Middle Ages, it was thought of that a piece of the bride’s clothing brings good luck. Because of this, wedding guests resorted to tearing off pieces from the bride’s wedding gown-a very unpleasant experience for the bride. To save themselves from the painful experience of having her clothes torn of from her, brides began throwing items, such as the garter belt and the bouquet, to the crowd.
Despite this, some impatient, tipsy men still tried to remove the garter belt from the bride themselves. Thus, began the tradition of the grooms removing the garter belts from their brides themselves and throwing them to the men.
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We would like to acknowledege the following source for this article.
http://www.asrdj.com/wedding_trivia.asp
