Vintage Wedding Traditions That Should Have Never Gone Out Of Style

While brides today still often make sure to have something borrowed, something old, something new, and something blue on their wedding days, the famous saying actually ends with "...and a sixpence in her shoe," a lucky coin traditionally give to the bride by her father to symbolise good health and wealth for the newlyweds.

It used to be common for brides and grooms to write love letters to each other, which would be placed in a box and opened on their first anniversary.

Nowadays, brides and grooms serve all kinds of desserts at their weddings (cookies! doughnuts! pie!), but there's nothing more classic than a good ol' fashioned cake. It's not as common of a practice today, but it used to be very common to freeze the top tier of your wedding cake to break out and eat together on your first anniversary.

Groom's cakes are a tradition that started in during the Victorian era when there would be a wedding cake, a groom's cake (for the groomsmen), and a bride's cake (for the bridesmaids). While the wedding cake is usually vanilla, the groom's cake is a place to have fun with chocolate and other less traditional flavours. Because more cake = a better wedding.

While it may seem odd now, proposing with a ring shaped like a snake with ruby eyes was once all the rage during the Victorian era after Prince Albert proposed to Queen Victoria with a snake ring featuring an emerald-set head. At the time, the coils winding in a circle symbolised eternal love.

Couples today often make the decision to see each other before the ceremony so they can get portraits out of the way and enjoy the post-ceremony festivities. But while the tradition of not seeing your betrothed before walking down the aisle has some icky origins (essentially, back when marriage was considered a business transaction, this was a way to ensure the groom didn't back out of the deal), we think it makes for a more emotional experience.

Honeymoons used to involve the couple drinking a fermented wine made from honey, called mead, for a month (a full cycle of the moon) following their wedding. We're not saying drink mead for a whole month, but the idea of bringing back the month-long honeymoon sounds pretty great.

At the turn of the century, wedding guides advised brides that the ideal time to marry was high noon, following the practice of lunchtime wedding receptions. (Ever wonder where the morning suit got its name? Morning weddings!) Today, a lunchtime wedding is a great way to save some money, too, since they're not as popular as nighttime affairs.