Alternatives to Throwing the Bouquet

The bridal bouquet toss celebration goes back to the fourteenth century in France where it was believed that a bride was especially lucky on her wedding day. Guests would rush towards the bride at the end of the ceremony in hopes of tearing off a piece of her dress to take home for their own good fortune. This often ended in a scuffle dangerous for the bride (and guests). For a brief time, in an effort to fend off the wild attacks, the bride would throw her stockings (or garter) until brides began to rebel against this undignified practice. Brides instead switched to throwing the bouquet and the tradition has remained in place.

However, if the traditional bridal bouquet toss isn’t for you, there are alternative ideas:

Wish Come True Bouquet Toss - Invite all the women onto the dance floor, both married and single. Ask them all to make a wish right as the bouquet is tossed and whoever catches it will get their wish.

Fortune Bouquet Toss - Invite everyone onto the dance floor and have a bouquet that consists of several small bunches of flowers that are simply held together by your hands. On each bunch, have a handwritten “fortune” attached. When you throw the flower bunches in the air, they break apart so several people will get a “fortune” bouquet.

Longest Married Bouquet Toss - Invite all married couples onto the dance floor and have the DJ announce that everyone married less than 5 years to leave, then less than 10 years to leave and so on until the couple married the longest is left dancing and they are awarded with the bouquet. Keep in mind that this may not be the right bouquet toss for you, especially if you have a recently deceased grandparent that would have been married the longest if they were still living. This also focuses on married people and leaves out the single folks. So make sure that most of your wedding guests are in fact married.

Special Honours Bouquet Toss - Split up the bouquet into halves and give one half to your mother and one to your mother-in-law. The bridal bouquet could also be presented to grandparents, split apart for all the women in the bridal party, presented to your maid of honour, your sisters, a friend who is engaged, etc. Think of someone you’d like to honour and give it to them as a “good luck” bouquet.

Gather all the single women on the dance floor. Take a salt shaker and have the women hand it to each other while the music is playing in the background. When the music stops, whoever is holding the saltshaker gets to keep the bouquet. If you don’t have many single women, you can do the same, however, have everyone stay seated at their tables and pass it around.