Old Wives’ Tales about Marriage

I remember witnessing the marriage of a young couple who I had been friends with throughout their engagement. They seemed happy enough, and I was pleased to attend their wedding.
During the part of the ceremony where the groom puts the ring on the bride’s finger, he became nervous and dropped the ring. The congregation was silent as the ring rolled across the floor and down a heater vent. The entire ceremony was put on hold while he and one of the groomsmen pried up the vent and retrieved the ring.
After the ceremony, I jokingly asked the bride why she hadn’t stepped on it as it rolled away. She told me that dropping the ring was an old wives tales attached to the superstition that the marriage was doomed, but had thought in an instant that if she stepped on the ring, there was no turning back from the doomed part, that the marriage was even more doomed if she stepped on her own wedding ring.
This gave me the idea to research other old wives tales, and the result is listed here for your entertainment:
The first part of the superstitions has to do with the wedding shower. The first gift that the bride opens should be the first thing she uses in her new home. It would seem to me that you could get a lot of laughs with this one. The person to give the third gift will soon have a baby.
Old wives tales abound regarding the best day of the week to get married, Marry on a Monday and always have health, marry on a Tuesday and it will bring wealth.
Wednesday is the best day of all-although I could find out nowhere as to why-Thursday for losses, Friday for crosses. This is rooted in the belief that Jesus was tried on a Thursday and buried on a Friday. Marry on a Saturday and your marriage will have no luck at all, which is very interesting because further research showed most weddings do, in fact, take place on a Saturday. Maybe this has everything to do with the high divorce rate. An old wife would probably tell you that it does.
Good omens on your wedding day include seeing a rainbow and meeting a chimney sweep, bad ones include seeing an open grave. (It would beg the question why people marry in churches with graveyards attached, but that’s the way it always has been…)
The tradition of carrying the bride across the threshold of the new home was started because of the belief that if the bride tripped, the marriage would suffer. An eerie old wives superstition is that whoever goes to sleep first on the wedding night will be the first to die, and when changing the sheets, do not let your work be interrupted or both of you won’t be able to sleep that night.
If you get water on your stomach while washing the dishes you will marry an alcoholic. Always wear an apron when in the kitchen, and my mother’s favorite, don’t sing at the table or you will marry a crazy person. She used to say that and then look right at my father. (They were happily married until the day they died.)