5 Extraordinary Wedding Rituals And Their Origin

Weddings involve extravagant decor, grand revelry and plush gifts.

They also involve various eccentric age-old customs and traditions. Without all of these elements blended together in perfect harmony, a wedding can easily lose out on its true essence. While elegant decor and vivacious parties work towards making the wedding memories worthwhile, it is the traditional customs and rituals which add meaning to a wedding. These ceremonies not only bring two people together but also their families, while binding them all with the thread of love and warmth.

Jumping The Broom

‘Jumping the Broom’ is a wedding ritual practised in West African weddings and Wiccan communities. The ritual is usually performed after the wedding ceremony is over and the couple has been pronounced as officially wedded. During the ritual, a broomstick is placed in front of the newlyweds as they are expected to jump over it. The jump symbolises that the newlywed couple will now push away their old lives and step into forming a new life together. The custom is believed to have originated in the 18th century in Europe, to bypass the intervention of the church in a marriage because the marriage rituals of the Gypsies or the Roma were not acknowledged by the church. One such prominent ritual observed in Wales was the ‘Besom Wedding’. The marriage ceremony was quite similar to that of the ‘jumping the broom’ ritual, where the couple had to jump over a broomstick without touching it. Moreover, to invalidate the marriage a couple had to take the jump, only backwards. Some brides make their own brooms while others go for highly adorned, ready-made ones. Nowadays, the broomsticks are embellished with silk ribbons, fresh or silk flowers, bows, beads among others.

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