Also called something old something new, sixpence in her shoe, wedding luck customs
The most widely practised marriage magic is a set of wedding luck customs: something old, new, borrowed and blue with a sixpence in the shoe, grain or rice thrown over the couple, and a lucky horseshoe. This page gathers them as a gentle charm for a couple's good start.
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Take care: Rice and seed on stone steps can be slippery; petals or bubbles are kinder for guests and birds. Do not borrow anything precious without the owner's blessing, and return it.
The oldest form of Roman marriage had the bride and groom share a cake made of far, emmer wheat, in the presence of the chief priests and ten witnesses. The name of the rite comes from the grain, a sign of how deeply cereal was tied to the start of a household.
Uses: emmer wheat cake
The rhyme first appears partly in an 1871 London magazine story and in fuller form in an 1876 wedding report, the so-called Lancashire version. The line about a sixpence in her shoe is a later Victorian addition. The folklorist William Henderson, who collected northern English customs, is one reason Lancashire is named as its home.
Showering a couple with grain, nuts or rice to wish them plenty and children is very widespread, though detailed early histories are thin. Many venues now ask for petals, bubbles or birdseed instead.
Uses: rice, petals
The 'something old, something new' rhyme is younger than people think. The phrase 'something borrowed and something blue' appears in a story in 'St James's Magazine' (London, 1871), and an 1876 newspaper report of a wedding describes the bride wearing, by 'ancient custom', something old and new, borrowed and blue. The sixpence line was added later in the Victorian period. The coin itself became harder to find after Britain decimalised in 1971, and souvenir sixpences are now sold for brides.
Grain at weddings is far older. In Rome's most solemn marriage, confarreatio, the couple shared a cake of emmer wheat, and showering a couple with grain to wish fertility and plenty appears in many cultures, though popular histories of rice-throwing are vague and should be taken lightly. Horseshoes have been luck charms in Britain for centuries and still turn up as bridal keepsakes.
A loaf and a little salt carried into a new home or offered at its door, so the household will never go hungry and life there will keep its savour.
A used iron horseshoe nailed above a doorway to bring luck into the house and keep the Devil, witches and fairies out.
Handfasting was the old English and Scottish word for a betrothal or marriage made by joining right hands and speaking vows. Today it usually means the modern ceremony of binding a couple's hands with cords or ribbons, which began in 1960s Wicca and is now common at many weddings.
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