WHY THROW RICE TO THE WEDDING COUPLES

Why throw rice to the wedding couples? It is a very ancient custom linked to the wish of abundance, well-being, prosperity and happiness, dating back to the primitive tribes and to their custom to have rice during the wedding rite.
In the East rice is the staple since thousands of years. There is in fact a Chinese saying to express its importance: ”One works and nine eat rice”. In other words, if you grow rice there is food for everybody.

Throw rice to the wedding couples

An ancient Chinese legend tells that one day a good genius, seeing the farmers suffering from hunger, was moved to pity so much that he pulled out his teeth and then threw them in a swamp. After this unusual sowing many small plants were born and the fruits, once peeled, recalled the white of his teeth. Since then there cannot be hunger wherever there is a rice plant, but only abundance. Hence the auspicious throw rice to the wedding couples when they are leaving the church.
Once it was the guests to take care of this detail, now it is no longer that way. Today nobody leaves the house to go to a wedding holding a box of rice, guests expect to find well prepared and arranged rice at the church exit.
I realize it is one more task among the hundreds of things to think about, but maybe it’s worth it!

Photo Credit: The Perfect Palette

Throw rice to the wedding couples is not harmful for the expensive dresses: providing cones or sachets containing coloured or white rice in tune with your wedding is not to be underestimated as a detail showing immediately to your guests the attention that you or your wedding planner put to the care of the details. You can prepare rice in wicker or wooden containers according to your style or present it in single “portions” using small sachets or small cones.
How many should you buy? I suggest half the amount of the guests.
Usually the rice of choice is white even though these days the coloured one creating a bigger sensation in the photographs and the wedding video is definitely trendy.
The sachets or cones will be placed inside a few baskets which you can give to the bridesmaid or the pageboy or to some friend, that will have the task to distribute it to the guests outside the church or the town hall.
You must have surely heard that the rice stains the groom’s suit. The usual half truths!

Photo Credit: The Groodrich Wife

Rice does not stain, but the starch it is rich in, if thrown on a dark fabric as it usually is the groom’s suit, will leave some streaking that will come right off using a damp cloth. The problem is that the exit from the church and the photographs portraying the hugging moment with the wedding couple is not the best time to be “brushing” the groom’s suit, so let’s avoid the problem washing the rice under running water the day before and drying it with a cotton cloth, so that the starch in excess will be taken off and everything will be impeccable.

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