Rice and weddings, what's the deal?

[Kjetil]

*Originally posted by Eleusis *
Heh, and I thought I could stamp out all the bird exploding nonsense with one simple link to Cecil.

No, but to Snopes.

[Eleusis]

I bet Cecil could beat up Snopes in a street fight.

[chattywine]

They DON’T explode?

Great, so like I’m the last person to know this. :smack:

[Padmaraga]

Not to hijack the thread too badly but…

related to this:

(10) A Presbyterian minister called WBEZ to say that the reason they didn’t want you to throw rice at weddings was that it was like spreading little roller bearings all over the floor, and insurance companies didn’t want the bride and groom to fall and break their necks. Though now that I think about it, using birdseed instead of rice is basically replacing roller bearings with ball bearings.

…I notice lately a trend toward replacing rice and/or birdseed with bubbles (little bottles of bubble soap with wands are distributed to guests) or flower petals. I work peripherally to the bridal industry, btw.

[BMalion]

Non-scientific personal anecdote follows:

My wife, being very efficient, wanted to do as much as possible for our wedding ahead of time. Since she was going to be working out of state until 2 weeks before our wedding. I handled most of the arrangements but she had a bright idea; why not pre-pack all those cute little bags of birdseed ahead of time? In May, for an August wedding.

So she did, wrapped those little bags of seed all up in ribbons and put them in a nice box all done up in wedding-print wrapping paper. I was at her house, before she came home, doing some clean up and I saw this box that was obviously meant to be for our wedding. So I took the lid off and peeked inside…

A living room sized cloud of teeny-tiny moths exploded out of the box into my face and all through her house! I felt like how Pandora must have felt.

I still tease my wife about it. I tell my friends to forget about doves, just fill a box with birdseed, wait 3 or 4 months and open it at the ceremony.

I love my wife.

[Isabelle]

Since the rice isn’t good for birds to digest, it is suggested you throw bird seed. If you don’t like that idea you can always blow bubbles. I just went to a wedding where everyone was given a small bottle of bubbles and we blew them at the same time.
I never did see what the pictures looked like with bubbles all over the place but I bet it was neat.

[Kjetil]

‘Hey, let’s all drench them in soap!’

[moriah]

*Originally posted by Isabelle *
Since the rice isn’t good for birds to digest,

Ummm, if one reads the preceding posts, one would have learned to be skeptical of that statement. Birds can eat most kinds of grain, fresh or dried, which includes rice, without problem. It’s what birds eat.

it is suggested you throw bird seed.

By whom? Again, reading the preceding posts would point out that throwing bird food at newlyweds is ridiculous.

If you don’t like that idea you can always blow bubbles. I just went to a wedding where everyone was given a small bottle of bubbles and we blew them at the same time.
I never did see what the pictures looked like with bubbles all over the place but I bet it was neat.

I’m with Kjetil, let’s douse 'em in soap. Hmmm, what would that symbolize? Not fertility. Maybe just saying, “Keep your house clean!”

I’ve been told many times (though I’ve never seen personally) that the soap stains (as in a faded patch of color, not just a watermark) clothes, especially the bridesmaids gowns. I’ve been told, though I’ve never verified for myself, that the reason is because there’s vinegar in the bubble solution. My WAG is that bridesmaids dresses are cheaply dyed.

Peace.

At least its better than being pelted with rotten vegetables and garbage.