A Brief History (of Bridal Under-things)

Believe it or not, bridal garters are one of the longest surviving wedding traditions! 

Dating all the way back to the 15oo’s in France and England, where wedding guests would wait outside the bridal bed chamber  for the groom to toss the garter or stockings. The lucky one who caught the bride’s under-things was granted good luck and was supposed to be married in the next year.

It wasn’t always this simple though, in the 1700’s the tradition changed into a rather rough charging of the bride when the wedding guests decided any piece of the bride’s ensemble was good enough! This often resulted in the bride being trampled and her gown torn to shreds. Let’s just be thankful this isn’t happening at weddings anymore.

For a while there in the 1900’s brides would wear stockings with long ribbons on them and at the reception the ribbon would be cut into tiny pieces and passed out to the guests for good luck. This then changed into handing out pre-cut ribbons, scarves, gloves and other objects and the tradition of wedding favours was born.

Pretty strange stuff if you ask me, and this is just the highlights!

Nowadays the tradition dictates that the groom will remove the garter from the bride’s leg at the reception and toss it to all the single men.  The man that catches it will place it on the lucky lady that caught the bouquet and she will be the next to be married, he higher he puts it, the longer her marriage will last.  

Brides and Grooms have been altering this tradition to suit their personal style for as long as it’s been around and it will continue to change over the years.   One thing that seems to have lasted though is the use of the garter as “something blue” and this can be as simple as blue ribbon, or blue lining. Depending on the couple the ceremony or removing the garter can be wild and outrageous, or understated and quick.

The main thing to remember is that yes, it’s a silly tradition but everybody does it and it was never intended to embarrass anyone. It might seem weird for your new husband to be digging around in your dress while your parents are present, but 25 years ago, they were doing the same thing! 

Of course it might not have been removed to the music from the Mission Impossible movies but that’s another story, and it probably still ended up on someone’s head. 

*it should be noted that this is my interpretation using information gathered from a variety of sources.*

BridalGarters 2.0

I get asked all the time why I make garters. And the question that almost always follows "why" is "only garters?" Pretty much only garters, sometimes other stuff, but for the most part that's it. 
The answer to the why is not as glamorous as I'd like to think. The truth is I fell into it by accident, I made one for a co-worker as a silly joke and it kind of just caught on. Of course it's not quite that simple, see I've worked in bridal for years. Both as a consultant, and as a seamstress and while working as a consultant I thought it would be cute to make a garter for one of our girls. (Who happened to have a little bit of a thing for zebra print.)   Looking back now that garter I made her really wasn't very nice...Sorry Julie! But it was good for a little laugh at work, and on her wedding day when the groom saw it, and I'd like to think it holds some sentimental value for her. After I told that story to a few friends I got asked to make a couple more. And then a couple more, and they started to get nicer, and more elaborate. When it got to the point past friends, and friends of friends asking me I realized this must be something not available to brides! Little did I know garters would, quite quickly, take over my house, and my time, and my life? Go figure. 
Now I don't want to give away the whole story in the first ever blog entry but here I am, 20 months later and girls are still asking me to make them! 


Anyway...I hope everyone likes my new website! Major re-vamp would probably be an understatement. Total overhaul is more accurate, and it took a really long time and a whole lot of patience from my designer but I'm very, very happy it's here. 


- Bree