It is evident, then, that throughout history most civilizations have used wedding throws of various kinds as a means of conferring fertility and good luck to the bride and groom. What then is the derivation for strewing rose petals with which we started this discussion?
The origins of the tradition of wedding petals are not so clear-cut, but it is known that in medieval England, it was traditional for the bride to be preceded by a flower girl on her way to church, who would strew fresh rose petals before her to signify happiness. This has evolved to the stage that church aisles are often strewn with rose petals to make the bride's final walk as a single woman a happy and colorful occasion.
In Roman history, it was traditional for the groom to give nuts to his friends, normally walnuts or hazelnuts, to signify the end of his life as a single man. One can only ponder on what the nuts represented! It would be understandable if the groom received the nuts from his friends, since in many ancient communities, such as the Assyrian, Hebrew and ancient Egyptian civilizations, nuts and grains were regarded as symbols of fertility and fruitfulness. Why the groom should do the giving is unknown, though this may have been the precursor to the traditional 'stag night'.
The wedding throw was initially a pagan rite, and grains and seeds were thrown rather than rice, which spread from the orient to the west in the Middle Ages. What people threw would naturally depend on the crops indigenous to the area, and the idea was that the fertility symbolized by the seeds would be passed on to the couple. Perhaps fresh rose petals were used as wedding throws in the middle ages, since they are known to have been used to decorate the bride's hair from very early times.
The colors of such wedding rose petals are often chosen to match the bridesmaid's dresses, and they can also be used to decorate floral walkways at the reception. Fresh rose petals are frequently used as table decorations, and if fresh petals are not available, many outlets sell freeze-dried rose petals that look just the same.
It is said that the throwing of wedding rose petals and confetti, rather rice, began in 1988, when Ann Landers invented the story of birds exploding after eating dried rice, in order to discourage the throwing of rice at weddings. This, of course, is nonsense, otherwise there would be few birds left in China! The tradition probably reduced in popularity because dried rice is very slippery when trod upon, and in the modern litigious society we live in, confetti and rose petals are safer.
However, rose petals are not bird friendly, and many churches have banned the use of confetti. Perhaps we shall shortly be reverting to cake that the birds will rapidly mop up, leaving everybody happy: except, perhaps, the florists.
