Bridesmaids

The modern bride often has attendants of many different ages and dressed in different styles. Once she would not have done so. She would try to make all her maidens look the same as herself to confuse evil spirits. The bridesmaids would even have veils like her to set the demons a puzzle.

It could be trouble just being the bridesmaid  without demons. Some superstitions say that if a young woman is a bridesmaid three times, she won't get to be a bride herself - unless she can manage seven outings.
Similarly, a bridesmaid who stumbled on the way up the aisle was supposed to remain an 'old maid'.

And of course, straining to catch the bride's bouquet so you will wed next could lead to an accident.

There are some other oddities. Apparently in Kentucky:

If a bridesmaid goes to bed backward with her hand over her heart, she will be married before the year is out, provided the first man she sees in the morning is an old one.

Another is all the bridesmaids signing the bottom of the bride's shoe - the one whose name wears most will marry next.

In some places, bridesmaids might sleep with a piece of cake under their pillow and hope to dream of their own groom.

Some modern women might like this one:

If the bride wishes to be the dominant partner in the marriage, she must be the first to buy something after the wedding.  The quickest way to do this was to buy a pin from the chief bridesmaid when changing out of her bridal dress into her travelling outfit.

 Yet still I come back to the idea of evil spirits wanting to ruin the marriage - I find this quite haunting.

Considering the Lily

Brides have often carried lilies in their bouquets.

The bouquet itself may well come from the bunch of flowers and herbs that richer people carried in the Middle Ages. Different kinds were known as posies, tussie-mussies or nosegays. (The Queen still  carries one on Maundy Thursday). These were meant to keep away noxious smells and poisonous miasmas that caused disease.

The pure white Madonna lily is heavily scented. It is associated with the Virgin Mary as a symbol of innocence. 

Even so, many people won't have it indoors because it reminds them of funerals; before embalming, mortuary chapels and refrigeration, its powerful perfume was used to mask the smell of decay.

Similarly, the Calla or Arum lily can have a strong scent. In frost-free parts of America, it is grown on graves as a sign of resurrection. 

It was popular in the '20s and '30s in bridal sprays - very glamorous and Hollywood together with dropwaist satin dresses and headbands.

Finally, the name always makes me think of Lily Munster. I thought Yvonne de Carlo in the popular comedy of the 60s The Munsters was very beautiful in an eerie way.

Drawing a veil...

Brides in many cultures wear veils.

They represent modesty often - but there is also something mysterious about the half-covered face.

What is going on behind that gauze?

What is the bride truly feeling?

We might well wonder if anything is being concealed.

Perhaps lifting the veil might lead to something we would rather not see.

Window shopping

When I was little, I used to love staring into bridal shop windows.

I used to beg and plead  for my father to slow the car down outside the grandest ones in Leeds.

My younger self saw only glamour and beauty.

Now I see an impossible ideal: a fake purity.

The visions in white I used to see have taken on another aura.

One I find quite disturbing.

How about you?

Miss Havisham

This blog is all about spooky brides - so I couldn't miss out the wonderfully theatrical Miss Havisham. She's the bitter and twisted spinster in Charles Dickens' 'Great Expectations'.

Here she looks a very Grande Dame.

She was jilted by the swindler Compeyson at twenty to nine on the morning of her wedding. Ever afterwards she wore her wedding dress and just one shoe. 

All the clocks in her house were stopped at twenty to nine.

The Wedding Breakfast - including the cake - was left to moulder away.

She teaches her adopted daughter, Estella, to despise men. Estella then breaks the heart of Pip -which Miss Havisham regrets later. She begs forgiveness shortly before her dress catches fire and she dies of her injuries.

Was she an old lady?

Or rather younger?

Certainly an inspiration for photographers:

How do you imagine her?

Beauty is in the eye...

So many times I have heard it said 'all brides look beautiful'. It would probably be churlish to disagree but there certainly can be rather creepy images of brides.

This one - is she comatose, or does she completely disdain her husband to be?

Image courtesy of Holly Gramarzio
 (Creative Commons)

How about this? The mannequin looks so sad - was she modelled from life - or death?

Image courtesy of Robyn E. Jay
(Creative Commons)

And as for her, would you trust what she put in your mouth?

Image by Danny
(Creative Commons)

There is a place for the disconcerting, the melancholy and the not-entirely-trustworthy on this site - and in my written work. Please call back for more marital strangeness next week.