A Bride's Book of Wedding Traditions

Whether it's candlelit and black tie, breezily casual, or sleek and postmodern, every wedding reflects the unique values, taste, and heritage of the bride and groom. Arlene Hamilton Stewart helps today's bride fill her wedding with special meaningful touches by revealing traditions and customs that span cultures and centuries and have symbolized love, luck, fruitfulness, and joy from time immemorial. She shares dozens of ways a bride can adapt these rituals to give her ceremony extra beauty and resonance. Perhaps it's a sheaf of golden wheat at the altar (an ancient Greek custom); elegant calligraphy invitations (as were done by medieval monks); or a Victorian "regard ring," in which the first letter of each gemstone spells out a message or a name. Sharing traditions from ancient times through the Victorian era and the postwar years as well as African-American, Native American, Asian, and other ethnic traditions, this book will help brides personalize their weddings as never before.