Cake And I Scream

Summer is a favorite season of many of us. As the sun dances on our faces, we feel the tingling sensation of life playing the rhythm of the dance.

During the summer months, the days are longer, the fruit is sweeter, the trees are greener and people are friendlier. Summer is synonymous with vacationing, have more fun and more relaxation, (although I have never met anyone who gets a chance to actually relax on vacation.) We try to fit everything in before winter comes and shuts everything down with a vengeance.

Summer is also the season of marriage. Quite a few people get knotted this time of year. Historically, June tends is a very popular month for weddings because of the ancient Roman goddess named Juno who was the goddess of marriage. Many Romans chose to honor her by tying the knot in June.

Some of you may already know that my brother is getting married very soon. Along with my brother, my magnificent friend Max is also getting married. (although not to my brother.)

According to WikiAnswers, every minute 9,999,999,999,999,999,999 people get married in the world. (That's not a typo, that 19 numeral 9's.)

Back in Roman times, couples often married in June so they could time the conception of their first child. This way, the wife wouldn't be too far along in her pregnancy to perform the manual labor required during harvest time. Be still my heart, how romantic is that?

I can just see my little friend Max in her “manual labor outfit” - Chanel dungarees, Christian Louboutin shoes with those cute red soles, holding her Prada bag and donning her Gucci sunglasses, and Armani sun hat, all accompanied by a baby bump. A real photo opportunity.

As she pushes a wheel barrel full of grains, nuts, seeds, and French romance novels, she would be cursing simultaneously in all of the languages in which she is proficient - Portuguese, Spanish, English, Mozambican, French, Italian, German, and by the time she finishes plowing the field, she would be speaking in tongues. (Max you know I love you.)

It will be quite a spectacular day for them and everyone else getting married. In honor of my brother, his fiancée, Max and her fiancé, and everyone tying the knot, I want to share some wedding traditions that may add a little flavor to your wedding.

Celtic brides and grooms ate three handfuls of salt and oatmeal as protection against evil spirits, which probably wasn't as tasty as cake and champagne.

If the wife wanted a good relationship with her new mother-in-law, she hoped that the groom's mother would break a cake over her head as she entered the marital home. If she was so lucky, according to superstition, the two would remain friends for life.

All the guests would wait anxiously for wedding guests to break short bread over the heads of the bride and groom, at which time they would scramble to collect a bit of it from the ground to eat, thereby insuring a good match when it was their time to marry.

On the wedding night the bride's girlfriends would dress her for her special night and put her in bed, then leave her waiting for her groom. But before the groom was allowed to enter, all the male guests would drop by to kiss the bride good night while she blushed in her night clothes.

Once the groom was with his bride for the night the couple could expect no peace. By custom, the guests were expected to drink and harass the newlyweds until dawn. It could be as simple as peeking in the windows or as bold as kidnapping the bride or groom. This is why honeymoons became popular, getting far away was the only way to find peace on the couple's first night as man and wife.

When the couple was ready to seal their union, the groom might crouch on the floor and leap into bed imitating a salmon. This "salmon leap" was symbolic of a salmon swimming up stream to spawn.

It was the accepted practice in Babylonia 4,000 years ago that for a month after the wedding, the bride's father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. Mead is a honey beer, and because their calendar was lunar based, this period was called the "honey month" or what we know today as the "honeymoon."

(To be continued.)