History Lessons with Dr Sarah Bendall
2
The Wedding Garter Toss: A Quick History
Think the wedding garter toss is a tacky new tradition? Think again. Tossing the bride’s garters is actually a European tradition that dates back several hundred years. Keep watching to find out more!
00:00 – Introduction
00:52 – What is a Garter?
01:23 – The Bedding Ceremony
02:10 – Tossing…
source
30 comments
I won't be doing that at my wedding, mainly because I don't like the historical implications of it (the way men want some piece of ownership over a woman's sexuality) – but also a little bit because it always makes me cringe with secondhand embarrassment when I go to a wedding that does it.
I think it depends on the couple and attending guests.
I'd do it along with other fun campy things. After a sweet little ceremony. Because I'm also a sappy girl.
It would totally be a tounge and cheek. It's fun time. Like a 3 legged race is planned. (Gusts should wear picnic clothes.) It's a ceremonial event where 2 should act as 1. A ring toss where gold covered hoops are tossed over bride and groom tall traffic cones.
I really love my mate and have an abundance of silliness that comes from being in a safe heartfelt relationship.
Never been married but I probably wouldn’t do the garter removal. It’s a bit creepy, everyone staring while the groom fumbles around under the bride’s gown while she is embarrassed and everyone making crass jokes… I always thought it a bit tacky— whether a new or old tradition. And yes the young men hate having to stand there and often run away as no one wants to get married next. And it singles out all the unmarried men and women which some people find uncomfortable, the bouquet and garter tossing. The only way I might do it if the groom had to have a garter removed under a dress/skirt/kilt too, but I don’t see that happening, to make things at least equal in terms of gender.
I remember reading a collection of marriage traditions that seemed mostly to source folk traditions from the late 19th and early 20th century, and it talked about a region where it was customary for the BEST MAN to remove the garter WITH HIS TEETH and throw it to his mates. 😅😬
My husband threw my garter at our wedding! I definitely can see how some people consider it tacky, but it was honestly a lot of fun and it never crossed my mind to not do it.
I did not do this. I found it too weird with my older sister's wedding and omitted it in mine.
I wish you wouldn't use AI generated images. I'm so tired of seeing them
We skipped the garter toss. I’m a wedding officiant and didn’t want a bouquet toss either. No young women fighting over my flowers or men scattering to avoid the garter for us! Instead I presented my bouquet to the woman who had been married the longest as a hope for a long, happy marriage. In place of the garter toss, we had a “Bonny knees” contest with the gentlemen in kilts strutting their stuff and showing off their knees (we had a Scottish theme and broke from many usual American wedding practices.)
why use an AI image for something there was almost certainly a real picture of? not only is it unethical but it just looks bad in general. :/
I've been to my fair share of weddings but when I first heard about this it was a complete culture shock.
Well both historical, and super tacky and uncomfortable. I wonder if those historical brides would have forgoed this tradition if they were given the opportunity to reject it
You’re a historian and decided to show non historical references in a video about the history of a tradition. AI is trained on existing artwork pulled with no credit to the original artist or context. While I understand not having a budget to purchase artist renderings or pay for use rights- you clearly had enough info to create the video without the AI images. This is really disappointing from an educator, historian, and creator.
I was married 43 years ago! My husband said no to the garter throw. His reasons were private! I was fine with it.
Nope, no garter throw at my wedding, 15 years ago now. For all the reasons you stated, I felt like it was tacky and gross. But my wedding was non-traditional in many other ways, so I wasn't worried about one more. 🎉
You had me wheezing around the 5-mins-mark!
History is fascinating & wild …!
I have the sudden urge to embroider a strip of fabric that says "Garter? I barely know 'er!
Well it's older and much more complicated than I realized! So I'm thinking traditionally tacky. I was married in the 80's and was told that who ever caught the garder was next to wed. It made sense at the time…
I recall my mom or SIL saying something about the Tradition Ryme: Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed and Something Blue. I said "WHAT??!?" So i got told about how a garrer and jewelry, flowes, dress, headdress, etc, can provide these things. I dont recall what we did about it, other than i had neclace and garter from my mom. She still had hers…
My wedding ended up being a Farce. Nothing normal about it. So the Wedding had to be done in another City, in the Office of Justice of Peace, during Work Hours. 2 Witness only could Attend..It was Winter and a snow storm had huge snowbanks on the sidewalks. Only boits i had were NOT Wedding material. Knee high BLACK boots! We had a small meal at our new Apartment. And a Reception the weekend gollowing. No danving, carousing or Rowdy young men. I returned the garter to my mom.
But i did hear stories from Older Gen, about Shiveries (? Spelling), that used to be geld as Pranks on Wedding nights! Plastic wrapping the Outhouse seats. Banging pots and blowing horns, singing and rowdie hollering, outside the house at 2am! Banging on doors, demanding Entry. I asked the person Why? Why DO all this? He replied it was Fun! It was like Pranking and Joking!
I said nothing, but my mind was NOT impressed!
To me? It stuck me AS Jealousy, Unkindness, Ignorant AND the possibility many of these WERE guilty of Leud Imaginings of the Wife. This is blantantly Against God's Laws! Men are to keep their Eyes, Minds and Imaginings to their self! It was Sin TO even start Daydreaming, as they stared at the uncovered bosoms!
But these Tradtions of Man, rarely EVER take into Account God's Commands! And the Churches often Aided! Notice the Pastor writing about it, in those Articles you have?
Another Old Custom, was Proving OF the Consumation, BY Displaying the blood stain on the sheets!! Public Proving!
Proving of the Males Abikity AND the Virgin Status of Wife. Alsobyo be Used IN Divorcing Matters, etc.
I find it ALL very vulger and Offensive and i am NOT a young lady! I am 64!
I HATE TRADITIONS! 75% or higher, have HARMS within them!
And I thought having to kiss in front of everyone was bad enough 😭 If you could count on people (men) to be respectful maybe it’d be different but you can’t
So, it's a ceremonial deflowering. Yep, that's tacky. I threw neither the bouquet nor garter.
I always heard that the men who caught the garder were next in line to find a wife or get married.
In the UK, when you go shooting/hunting/deer stalking, it’s still common to wear similar woollen stockings with your tweed suit. The socks aren’t elasticated, so they come with woollen garters you tie under the knee. Interesting that this garment seemingly hasn’t changed at all and probably one of the few examples where garters are used like this
Historical tacky tradition, for sure! Though not surprising when the Order of the Garter is one of the highest honours in the UK 😅
(I also love how you betray your Early Modern-ism with saying men stopped wearing stockings in 'the 19th century or something'!)
I've never heard of this. Straight people are so wild
So it's an OLD gross, creepy custom! I have no intention of getting married, but I wouldn't include it in my wedding ceremony if that changed.
There's a fantastic picture of me tossing the bouquet with a look on my face which says I was thinking about all those videos where the bouquet hits the fan, or someone has a catastrophic wardrobe issue while attempting to catch it, etc. We did the garter toss for laughs, honestly. We had a crazy enough group to be silly about it. I knit my own garter & put a blue ribbon in it. My husband had trouble getting it off my leg (cue the laughter) & ended up undoing the ribbon, so I had to take it from him & fix it before it could be tossed. 😂 That's all, it was more silly than anything else.
Those disturbing AI pictures at the end were amazing. 🤣
4th commenter – cant believe I'm this early on a video ! I didn't do a garter toss – felt it was creepy, gross and tacky as hell! I just threw my bouquet an according to the pictures and personal recounts my good cousin and maid of honor decided that my cousin would catch it for good fun because no one really reached for it the being in the front of the gaggle of women. At one wedding reception I attended the Bride had grow men from the what I assumed was the Grooms side ( the groom wasn't very mature for being 23- not surprising why with a family like that ) trying to pin gift money in the form of bills onto her dress and near her bosom ! She being very well endowed – thought it was in good fun, being a fun loving person thought if slightly embarrassing but funny . I would have been mortified if I were her ! never saw the money pinning thing again. must have been just that weird family. The was around 2009-2010 In Missouri at LDS/mormon wedding reception
I've mostly been to Welsh weddings, and a couple of Australian or English weddings. I've never seen a garter toss. There used to be a tradition at Welsh weddings for the photographer to take a pic of the bride with her leg out to show off the garter, but even that seems to have died out the past 10 years or so. I wouldn't have done a garter toss at my wedding. It sounds really creepy TBH.
I was married 12 years ago and I did wear a garter however, we did not do the toss. We only had family members attend, and I would have been way too embarrassed to do the toss with family members. So my husband removed it at the end of the evening when it was just the two of us. I think I chose to wear a garter because in the back of my head it was sort of a good luck thing I suppose and I wore a blue one to make sure I incorporated something blue.
I enjoyed the disturbing AI pictures at the end