Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Lovely Egyptians

Back in school, I remember one of my history teachers talking about the great inventions made by the Egyptians. Among them was... the wedding band. The practice of wearing the band on the fourth finger (known today as the ring finger) was because they believed that a vein from the fourth finger lead directly to the heart. By wearing rings on the fourth finger of their left hands, a married couple symbolically declares their eternal love for each other. How lovely :-).

The “vein of love” has now become a matter of tradition, and for that matter, I decided to make a little reserch about the different traditions around the world.

In some countries (Brazil, Canada, Chile, Croatia, France, India, Ireland, Italy, Japany, Korea, Mexico, Portugal, Finland, UK and the United States), the wedding ring is worn on the left hand.
In other countries however (Colombia, Germany, Greece, Norway, Peru, Poland, Russia, Spain and Venezuela), it is worn on the right hand.

In Western tradition, an engagement ring is a ring worn by a woman indicating her engagement to be married.
In some European countries, the wedding ring is the same as the engagement ring and changes its status through engraving and the change of the hand on which to wear it.
The bride wear it on her left ring finger and have the groom put the wedding band over it. She may also wear it on her right ring finger or continue wearing the rings on different hands after the wedding.

In Egypt, Brazil and many European countries, both the man and the woman usually wear engagement rings, most often in the form of matching plain bands of white, yellow, or rose gold. In these countries the man's engagement ring often also serves as the wedding ring. Some men wear two rings. The woman's wedding ring can sometimes have a precious stone.

In British tradition, the best man has a traditional duty of keeping track of a marrying couple's wedding ring(s) and to produce them at the symbolic moment of the giving and receiving of the ring(s) during the traditional marriage ceremony.

In more elaborate weddings, a ring bearer may assist in the ceremonial parading of the ring(s) into the ceremony, often on a special cushion or pillow.

To ilustrate I selected few ring bearer pillow to share.

Research info: wikipedia
Images:
1st row: picture 1 and 2-the wedding depot; picture 3- bklyn pillow
2nd and 3rd row:weddings by dezign

3 comments:

  1. Thanks for visiting!

    Awesome post and blog. I did not know the history behind the wedding bands! Thanks!

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  2. Love the deep maroon pillow with the cross! very different :)

    ReplyDelete