BRIDE, the term used of a woman on her wedding-day. It appears in many combinations, some of them obsolete; e.g., "bride-bell" (wedding-bells), "bride-banquet" (wedding-break fast). The bride-cake, or wedding-cake, had its origin in the Roman con f arreatio, a form of marriage, the essential features of which were the eating by the couple of a cake made of salt, water and flour, and the holding by the bride of three wheat-ears, sym bolical of plenty.
In the middle ages the wheat-ears were worn or carried by the bride. It became the custom for young girls to assemble outside the church and throw grains of wheat over the bride. In time the wheat-grains were cooked into thin dry biscuits, which were broken over the bride's head. In Elizabeth's reign these biscuits took the form of small rectangular cakes made of eggs, milk, sugar, currants and spices. Every wedding-guest had at least one, and the cakes were thrown at the bride as she crossed the threshold. They were the forerunners of the modern wedding cake which assumed its glories of almond paste and ornaments during Charles II.'s time.
Even to-day in rural parishes, wheat is thrown over the bridal couple with the cry "Bread for life and pudding for ever," expres sive of a wish that the newly wed may be always affluent. The throwing of rice, a very ancient custom but later than the wheat, is symbolical of the wish that the bridal may be fruitful. The bride-cup was the bowl or loving-cup in which the bridegroom pledged the bride, and she him. The phrase "bride-cup" was also sometimes used of the bowl of spiced wine prepared at night for the bridal couple. Bride-favours (or bride-lace) were at first pieces of gold, silk or other lace, used to bind up the sprigs of rosemary worn at weddings. Later these took the form of bunches of ribbons. Bridegroom-men, or groomsmen, represented a sur vival of the primitive days of marriage by capture, when a man called his friends to assist to "lift" the bride. Bridesmaids were usual in Saxon England. The senior of them attended the bride for some days before the wedding. The making of the bridal wreath, the decorations for the wedding-feast, the dressing of the bride, were among her special tasks. The senior groomsman (the best man) was the personal attendant of the husband. The bride wain, the wagon in which the bride was driven to her new home, gave its name to the weddings of any poor couple, who drove a "wain" round the village, collecting small sums of money or articles of furniture towards their housekeeping. These were called bidding-weddings, or bid-ales. In \Vales so general was the custom of "bidding-weddings" even up to the early part of the present century that printers kept the form of invitation in type. The bride's veil is the modern form of the flammeum or large yellow veil which completely enveloped the Greek and Roman brides during the ceremony. Such a covering is still in use among the Jews and the Persians.