Split: date=August 2008

Participants in wedding ceremonies , also known as the wedding party, include the bride and groom (or bridegroom), the maid of honor, bridesmaids, the best man, groomsmen, flower girls and page boys (including the ringbearer).

Bride

A bride is a female participant in a wedding ceremony: a woman about to be married, currently being married, or, in some uses, very recently married (applicable during the first year of wifehood). The term is sometimes used to mean "daughter-in-law",Fact: date=August 2008 as newly married women at one time moved into the husband's family home. Further back, the word possibly comes from the Teutonic word for "cook". A bride is typically attended by one or more bridesmaids or maids of honor. Her partner, if male, is the bridegroom or "groom", and after the wedding, in marriage, is her husband. In same-gender weddings, two feminine participants may both be termed brides. In some cultures, successful sexual intercourse between the bride and bridegroom is a required step to complete ("consummate") the wedding ceremony.

Attire

In Europe and North America, the typical attire for a bride is a formal dress and a veil. Usually, the dress is bought only for the wedding, and never worn again. For first marriages, a white wedding gown is usually worn, a tradition started by Queen Victoria's wedding. Through the earlier parts of the 20th century, Western etiquette prescribed that a white dress should not be worn for subsequent marriages, since the wearing of white was mistakenly regarded by some as an ancient symbol of virginity, despite the fact that wearing white is a fairly recent development in wedding traditions. Today, brides may wear white, cream, or ivory dresses for any number of marriages; the color of the dress is not a comment on the bride's sexual history. In fact, up until the middle of the 19th century, the bride generally wore her best dress, whatever color it was, or ordered a new dress in her favorite color and expected to wear it again.

In addition to the gown, the bride often wears a veil and carries a bouquet of flowers. A garter may also be worn by the bride, and later removed by the groom during the reception (US).

History

Under Tiberius the cake-eating fell into disuse, but the wheat ears survived. In the Middle Ages they were either worn or carried by the bride. Eventually it became the custom for the young girls to assemble outside the church porch and throw grains of wheat over the bride, and afterwards a scramble for the grains took place. In time the wheat-grains came to be cooked into thin dry biscuits, which were broken over the bride's head, as is the custom in Scotland to-day, an oatmeal cake being used. In Elizabeth's reign these biscuits began to take the form of small rectangular cakes made of eggs, milk, sugar, currants and spices. Every wedding guest had one at least, and the whole collection were thrown at the bride the instant she crossed the threshold. Those which lighted on her head or shoulders were most prized by the scramblers. At last these cakes became amalgamated into a large one which took on its full glories of almond paste and ornaments during Charles II's time. But even to-day in rural parishes, e.g. north Notts, wheat is thrown over the bridal couple with the cry "Bread for life and pudding for ever," expressive of a wish that the newly wed may be always affluent. The throwing of rice, a very ancient custom but one later than the wheat, is symbolical of the wish that the bridal may be fruitful.