The unluckiest day to get married is a Saturday in May, at least according to English superstition. My best friend and I discovered this last night as we were browsing Oxfam’s online shop1 for wedding dresses.
It’s such a stereotypically girl thing to do – and neither of us is dating anyone2 so it’s really more of an academic exercise than anything else. But some of these dresses were actually really amazing. Some of them were the trendy strapless kind, of course, which are lovely but not for me3, but I think I found my hypothetical wedding dress.4 Some of the dresses are not so amazing. There was one in particular that was just horrifyingly bad. It overemphasized the hips and butt area, and didn’t look like it would fit an actual woman. My eyes, they burned. But some of the dresses were great, and in the fictional world where I get married and have a wedding5, I am at least looking at Oxfam first.6
Not all the dresses were white, either. There was a silver one and a gold one and one with a tartan train. It got us thinking about the traditions and superstitions around weddings. Most people know “something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue” but did you know that Saturday used to be considered unlucky for weddings? Wednesday was the best day to get married. And May used to be an unlucky month. July and August weren’t bad, but November and December would bring you the most happiness. There are also superstitions about the dress colour and what day you buy the ring. And of course there are the traditions within the ceremony itself: the bridesmaids’ role as decoys, leaving the bridal outfit unfinished until the morning of the wedding, the cake, the confetti, shoes on the back of the car.
But my favourite by far is the medieval Breton tradition around the proposal. This just fascinates me. A suitor would leave a hawthorn branch outside his beloved’s door on May Day. If she accepted, she would leave it there. If she rejected him, she would replace it with a cauliflower. This brings all sorts of questions to my mind. What if the girl was away for the day? What if there was more than one marriageable daughter in the house? What if a girl had more than one suitor? What if someone interfered and stole the hawthorn branch, or the cauliflower? What does a boy do if he wants to propose on a different date? On the surface it seems like such a simple procedure, but I am afraid that it would be more trouble than it’s worth. But as long as they don’t get married on a May Saturday, I’m sure everything would work out.
1Did you know that Oxfam sells wedding dresses through its online shop? Did you know that Oxfam has an online shop? They do. I volunteer there.
2She only seems to attract creepy guys, and I only seem to help guys figure out that they want someone else.
3I’d be too worried about it falling down, no matter how tightly it was taped and bound.
4My views on marriage and weddings are firm, although not immutable, and very similar to my views on children: great and wonderful and special….when they’re other people’s.
5That order is deliberate.
6I think I'm done with the footnotes now.
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