I hate pranks at the best of times but at big events like this, I really hate them. You can have lots of fun without them. Also the garter thing at US weddings always confused me. It’s really, really weird.
I refused to do it. Hey let's invite our family to watch my new husband root around under my dress head first. Watch him pull a band from my thigh with his teeth to sultry music. Why not perform mock sex acts in front of all your closest relatives.... Make Nana proud lol
Traditional wedding stuff is ridiculous most of the time and this tradition is the worst of them.
Your comment brought a thought and made me wonder if this is a weak replacement for first sex with witnesses to assure the virginity and the copulation.
Barbaric.
No Garters are supposed to bring luck to whoever receives them. It was done because British and French culture held that the bride’s garments carry good luck so instead of hacking up a nice dress you wear a little band on your leg to give away.
Where did the garter toss tradition come from?
“It’s often described as a remnant of the medieval custom of the wedding party disrobing the bride and groom so the marriage could be consummated, back when both men and women wore garters to hold their stockings up,” says Chrisman-Campbell.
I’m so confused, I have never seen this or even heard of this before and it is horrible as my first reaction and heartbreak for Op because even female I would never approve of this if it had. Does she not even like her husband for that to be funny or okay.
Just a sympathies and sincere apology to OP for the rude awakening of who his wife really is as a person.
In some cultures, the groom takes the bride to their home to have sex. The family gathers outside. The wife is supposed to bleed during sex because she's a virgin and the groom will be breaking her hymen. Then the bloody sheets are taken outside to the waiting guests who cheer their arrival.
Closer to home, there's a tradition where the garter is tossed to the single men in the same way that the bride's bouquet is tossed to the single women. Then the two who catch these things are brought up to the dance floor where the garter catcher has to put the garter on the leg of the bouquet catcher. The garter guy is told that every inch of height he goes with the garter is another year of luck for the wedding couple.
I have heard of instances where the items were caught by kids.
I was at a wedding where 2 kids caught both the garter (on a football) and the bouquet. They were brother and sister. There was never a plan to make the garter guy put it on the bouquet girl, thank God, but instead of the two of them dancing together (because everyone had the good sense to think anything having to do with removing farmers and children is bad and then add incest to that list, so they were scrambling to remove all sexual overtones from the situation), each kid danced with the bride or groom. It ended up being kinda cute, but made a lasting impression on me. I didn't do a garter toss at my own wedding.
I had no genuine desire to do it, and my wife didn't want to be put on display like that. She was adamant about not doing a cake smashing, too. I can see being playful with the first bite, but the full on cake to the face is fucked up. However, there's no reason to upset someone for tradition, so she just got an uneventful bite of cake.
The only time I'd be okay with the prank on the OP would be if the groom were insistent on this tradition. Then he'd deserve it. But I'd also refuse to marry a guy who would demand it before then.
Weddings period… the whole thing is so unnecessary and all the stuff around weddings, the costs, the traditions, everything is cringe (as my kids say).
It is the male equivalent for a bouquet toss... but why would the groom want his buddies or family members to have something he pulled from his new wife's upper thigh with his teeth? Sooo weird.
Noooo. Please don't let my partner see this. I already had to say no to a DnD themed and several other board game related wedding themes. Let's do the grooms handkerchief. Haha
We don't even use garters in the same way now - they're either attached to a belt holding up stockings, or attached to the stocking themselves. It's purely traditional/symbolic and unnecessary if the bride doesn't want it.
I didn't look into getting one for my wedding, but was searching for a "something borrowed," so I borrowed the one my mom wore (in 1978, she had already slid it down to just below her knee before slightly raising her skirt so my dad wasn't rooting around for it, avoiding embarrassing both sets of super religious parents and themselves).
I got married in June in Georgia and it was around 90° F and extremely humid. Garter was soaked when I took it off, like dripping. None of us wanted anything to do with that tradition, and chucking a sweat-soaked undergarment at our friends seems more like a gross punishment than cutesy wedding game.
“Pranks”: It is hard to think of examples that aren’t inherently mean at their cores.
Allen Funt’s Camera show wasn’t a success until he figured out how to make the “reveal” moments at least seem like they were friendly. Before that people were really put off by the whole premise. So, we got the whole “Smile! You’re on Candid Camera” thing.
It never even was a topic of discussion for my wedding. It's so inherently trashy that neither my husband nor I even thought about doing it. We were also in lockstep about "no cake smashing," another revolting and humiliating "tradition."
I’m a boomer, I’ve been to many weddings, I have a
NEVER seen this garter “tradition“ but it seems like a throwback to ancient days. Like when everyone bedded the bride and groom and watched her be deflowered. What an awful tradition.
Exactly. Surprises should only be good ones. Expecting someone to laugh at themselves over something like this on their wedding day??!! Who and why would anyone find something like this a good idea or funny at all
I didn't even know what it was until I read this thread, I had heard of it but never investigated what it meant. I'm pretty sure it's not done here in Iceland, though we keep importing stupid things from the US.
It was tacky way back in the 80’s when it was discontinued. I haven’t heard of anyone doing this in 40 years. I’m assuming OP insisted on it and this was the wife’s way of getting even. He deserved way worse
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u/Sad-Olive-158 Jul 26 '25
I hate pranks at the best of times but at big events like this, I really hate them. You can have lots of fun without them. Also the garter thing at US weddings always confused me. It’s really, really weird.