Benedict's Consultancy & Management

You can consider yourselves engaged as soon as you decide to marry and to inform your parents.
Today, there is no traditional or expected engagement length. Many couples wait to announce their engagement until they begin making wedding plans (often 12 months before their wedding date).

The bethrotal ring dates back to the days of marriage by purchase, when it is served as both partial payment for the bride and as a symbol of the groom's honourable intentions. The gimmal ring had three parts, and at bethrotal the woman, the man and their witness each donned a portion to wear until wedding day, when the pieces were reunited as a single ring for the bride.
In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, posy rings were polular (a posy ring or endearing saying, way inscribed on the outside of the ring). A regard ring spelled out a message of love (DEAR) with precious stones such as diamonds, emeralds, amethysts and rubies. The diamond, first incorporated into engagement rings in medieval Italy, was chosen to stand for enduring love, because of it's hardness. Now, that men and women are enjoying equal roles in their relationships, a bride may also give a ring to her groom.

Legend has it that the first bridal shower took place in Holland when a maiden fell in love with a poor miller.
Hoping to discourage the marriage, the maiden's father denied her the customary bridal dowry. To help the young couple set up housekeeping, the miller's friends showered the bride with gifts. Today, there are many kinds of showers or Pre-wedding Parties. IE: Tea parties, Topperware Party...etc....

Originally, the bride's veil symbolized her youth and virginity. Bridal veils helped brides remain modest and hide themselves from jealous spirits. Even today, in Muslim  countries, a young man is bound by the constraints of religious modesty to conduct his entire courtship with his bride-to-be veiled, never being permitted to see her face until after the wedding.

In early days, veils were worn to confuse the devil and protect the bride from the evil eye.

Early Christian brides wore white (indicating purity, celebration) or blue veils (a symbol of the Virgin Mary's purity).

For some two thousand years, since the Roman times, white has been a symbol of celebration.
In nineteenth-century Victorian times, white was a sign of affluence.

Today, white is the colour for virginity it also symbolizes JOY on wedding day; women who are remarrying may choose among many shades of white - from ecru and eggshell to cameo.

Flowers have always represented a variety of emotions and merits (see tab on meaning Flowers).