Your lucky day: Wedding plans often include superstitions

Kelly Heuss, owner of Puttin' on the Glitz inPerrysburg, displays a wedding invitation. THE BLADE/JEREMY WADSWORTH Enlarge | Photo Reprints

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Melissa Jordan's maid-of-honor called her in a panic. The bride had asked her to look over the printer's proof of the wedding invitation, and she had found a typo.

"Did you approve it already?" she asked Ms. Jordan. "It's wrong!"

But there was no mistake. Ms. Jordan's wedding to Todd Jobe on Oct. 16 in Zion Lutheran Church in Sandusky is indeed scheduled at 1:31 p.m.

"It's some crazy superstition from the 1800s," Ms. Jordan said, explaining that it was believed to be good luck if the time of the ceremony was an uneven number.

Another superstition holds that good luck lands right on the half-hour, because the second hand will be on the upswing, signaling success.

The timing of the ceremony is just one of the schemes that brides and grooms have employed for hundreds of years to ward off evil spirits and ensure happiness and prosperity. Today, we're still honoring ancient good-luck rituals and wedding traditions — and making up new ones.

Love and luck are a popular couple this time of year. According to the National Association of Wedding Ministers, June and August are the busiest months for weddings.

Kelly Heuss, owner of Puttin' on the Glitz gift shop and bridal boutique in Perrysburg, said she prints many invitations for ceremonies on the half-hour. She also just ordered a supply of "lucky sixpence" for brides.

That's from the old English rhyme about "something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue." The last line, usually dropped, advises "a silver sixpence in her shoe," representing financial security. (A dime or penny is often substituted today.)

Brittany Craig, owner of Crowning Celebrations in Perrysburg, said it's common for brides to wear a piece of jewelry that has been created from vintage family pieces, a meshing of the old and new.

Some traditions are tweaked for one reason or another, creating a practice that, while it may be charming, has no historical or cultural foundation.

The Rev. John Mawhirter, pastor of Zion Lutheran Church in Sandusky where the Jordan-Jobe wedding will take place, cites the tradition of throwing rice at the newlyweds, representing good wishes for fertility.

"Then the urban legend came that if birds swallow the rice they will blow up," Mr. Mawhirter said. So guests started throwing birdseed instead.

But his church, and likely many others, forbids that because the seed gets tracked inside and ground into carpets. Still, a wedding calls for some kind of grand finale.

Hey! How about we ring little bells or blow bubbles?

Today's popular groom's cakes evolved from the long-ago practice of having a second wedding cake, a fruitcake that was sliced, put in a box, and sent home with guests as a gift. Single women were to put it under their pillow for sweet dreams of their future husband, said Mrs. Craig of Crowning Celebrations.

Nikki Wolfe, owner of Elite Events in Oregon, said she's seen bridesmaids sign their names on the bottom of the bride's shoe before the ceremony. "The tradition says whoever's name doesn't rub off by the end of the night is the next one to walk down the aisle," she said.

Some rituals might be one-of-a kind, observed only on a bride or groom's personal wedding planet.

Kristen Brown, a wedding planner and florist whose Temperance company is called Help! I'm Getting Married, tells of a bride who, in the weeks leading up to her wedding, "would only sleep on her right side because she had read an article that swore she would look better rested on that side ... I also had one bride and groom swear off any type of alcohol the entire month leading up to their wedding because they wanted to ensure that their judgment wasn't clouded up to the big event."

The "potty toast" is the most offbeat tradition observed by wedding planner and coordinator Melissa Lohr of Beautiful Memories in West Toledo.

The groom, Andy Talicska, who married Amanda Salyers April 16 in Oregon, said it goes back to his grandparents' wedding in 1941. Grandma's uncle was a prankster who decided to present the champagne toast using two bowls from children's potty chairs instead of glasses. As a special touch, he put a small chocolate candy bar in each bowl with the champagne.

It was a hit, and the next generation stepped it up by adding a new ingredient at each wedding.

"It kept going until my brother got married in 2008. By then, so much stuff had been added, I think 20 ingredients total, it was just nasty," Mr. Talicska said. They started over, and have had a few more weddings since then, bringing the current ingredient list for each bowl to champagne, a candy bar, Red Bull energy drink, pineapple juice, Hollandaise sauce, and a marshmallow Peep.

"It really started out as entertainment, but the weird thing is, there's 24 couples who have gotten married with the potty toast, and it's gotten to the point that it's almost a good luck superstition," Mr. Talicska said. Not one of the potty-toasted couples has split up.

Wedding-day weather is a major source of superstitions. "If it rains on the wedding, the bride will cry all her married life," warns one bit of folklore. But other sources say rain is lucky (because of its association with a bountiful harvest), insuring fertility and good fortune for the couple.

Mrs. Brown recalled a mother who prayed to Saint Medard, patron saint against bad weather, every Sunday for a year before her son's outdoor wedding. That day rain poured all morning, stopping three hours before the service. "The ceremony was gorgeous, and then the rain brought on 85-degree heat and 95 percent humidity, so I'm not sure if that one worked," Mrs. Brown reported.

Jane Wilde, a wedding consultant whose company is called the Wedding Maker, believes in the tradition of praying a rosary and hanging it on a tree or bush the night before the ceremony to ensure good weather. Mrs. Wilde took up the tradition four or five years ago "and it has worked every time," she said, including her son's wedding last October. It's now a Wilde family tradition and something she does for all of her clients, Catholic or not.

Tradition has a place of honor in music and dance, according to Doug Bermick, president of Professional Sounds in Temperance and South Toledo. The Tarantella is a staple of traditional Italian weddings, for example, as is the Hava Nagila at Jewish weddings and the grand march at Polish weddings.

Some newer musical traditions fall into the love-'em-or-loath-'em category. For some brides and grooms, the reception wouldn't be complete without the "Chicken Dance," "Hokey Pokey, "Macarena," "Y.M.C.A," and "Celebration." Other couples insist those go on a do-not-play list, Mr. Bermick said.

Advice to brides and dads to step off on their right foot down the aisle comes from Brooke Lauber-Cobb of Bee for the Day wedding planning. It signifies getting the marriage off on the right foot, she said, and gives the bride something to think about besides all those people staring at her.

Ms. Lauber-Cobb said occasionally a bride refuses to walk down the aisle at the rehearsal. They ask someone to stand in for them because they believe it's bad luck to walk down the aisle more than once.

Some take these things too seriously, she observed.

"I had a bride who didn't have ‘something borrowed' and she was in tears. I said, ‘You're going to make your own luck. That won't matter in the end. If you're arguing six years from now it won't be because you didn't have something borrowed. It's what you make your marriage.'"

Rabbi Sam Weinstein of Temple-Shomer Emunim in Sylvania agreed.

"Good luck and smooth sailing depends on the couple themselves," he pointed out. "A good marriage is hard work."

Contact Ann Weber at:

aweber@theblade.com

or 419-724-6126.