My Mom recently attended a wedding and was wondering about the symbolism of the bride and groom offering white roses to the enshrined Virgin Mary.
My Mom believes it reflects upon the brides virginity.
I tend to believe it is purely symbolic of the Virgin Mary.
What does it all mean?
I’ve attended a few weddings where this has happened after the ceremony as the *Salve Regina * is being sung. I’ve only ever seen the bride place flowers at the foot of the statue of the BVM though, never the groom. I’ve not heard that there’s a specific meaning attached to the offering. I thought it was just a pious act accompanying the prayers for the BVM’s intercession for the newlyweds.
This site has a walk through of a typical Catholic wedding. As you can see, a devotional to the Blessed Virgin Mary is not required, but then neither are unity candles, yet many couples like to include it as part of the ceremony.
When Mrs. D and I got married, it was the full Catholic ceremony. The service was almost two hours. We like to joke that at a Catholic wedding you know the bride and groom are GOOD AND MARRIED by the end of it. We did a devotional to the Blessed Virgin Mary and also had a unity candle. The priest had no problems with integrating that into the ceremony.
That’s pretty strange. My wife and I got married in a Catholic ceremony; we couldn’t do a Mass because I am not Catholic (I’m an atheist, but I still have my [del]passport to heaven[/del] confirmation and baptism certificates, so I passed muster). The priest told us that he could not allow a Unity Candle in his church because “well, frankly, it’s a pagan ritual.” (his words!) Bizarre, no?
Because it wasn’t a Mass, the devotional to the BVM was optional; my wife was ambivalent about it, and her mother was Fired Up to see her daughter give flowers to a statue. So we did it.
While his rationale is curious…there IS a school of thought that unity candles are rather redundant ( in a Catholic ceremony, anyway). What is the unity candle, but a symbol that the two people are now married? Well you already HAD the symbolism earlier in the ceremony with the exchange of vows and rings. It sends a bit of a mixed message to use the unity candle to symbolize “NOW we’re married” 
Actually the devotional to the BVM is ALWAYS optional…indeed there are many folks (me included) who think that the BVM devotional is a “private” ceremony best done in a private manner, rather than a public gesture.
A clarification for my fellow non-Catholics:
The BVM is the Blessed Virgin Mary.
The BMV is the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, and it is not customary to bring white roses when you get your new license plates.
Nor is it necessary to have a devotional to the **Burea of Motor Vehicles ** at a Catholic wedding. (or any wedding for that matter) 
It would certainly be out of charcter for the church to, I don’t know, absorb some pagan ritual into it’s own liturgucal tradition. That pries knows that’s just not the sort of thing the Catholic Church does. Merry Christmas!
I’ve seen priests refuse to allow the candle ritual too, but not on those grounds. The Church is an old hand at incorporating pagan rituals. The argument is more along the lines of:
From the many weddings I’ve attended, I must say that I tend to agree with the priests on this one.
[Sleight Hijack]This happened to my BIL at his wedding. His soon to be MIL didn’t know that they wanted to NOT have a unity candle and at the rehearsal dinner, she threw quite a fit.[/Sleight Hijack]
I think that the unity candle is an item that is at the discretion of the priest. The devotional to the BVM is also optional, but is not looked down upon by some priests.
In researching further I found this site exlains that different flowers have different meanings realted to the BVM.
The devotional does not even have to happen immediately within the ceremony (and indeed, the marriage ceremony and the Mass are two distinct things, you can have a Catholic Wedding without a Mass), or even in the same place – it can be done, for instance, at a different chapel on the way to/from the wedding that holds a special significance, or if there’s a Marian shrine in the vicinity they can stop there for it.
White flowers, representing purity, are a traditional Marian symbol and hence offering.
Thanks to all for the great information and links.
The thing is, based on this white rose invocation my Mother has the impression that the Bride is a virgin. Not to cast aspersions, but I think this impression is mistaken. The bride might be Catholic but I highly doubt that at her age (bordering 40) she is still a virgin. I may be mistaken, of course, but it seems the offering does not in itself indicate the bride’s virginity then?
I don’t think you’re mistaken. I’ve only ever heard it referred to as a sign of pious devotion to the BVM. Of course, as **JRDelirious ** notes, the BVM is a symbol of purity and thus white flowers are an appropriate offering.
Nope, as others have noted, it’s more about Mary’s virginity. (That is, the offering of flowers is about religious devotion, but the whiteness of the flowers symbolizes the Blessed Virgin’s purity.)
IMHO, and I’m sure in the NSHO of the Church hierarchy, it would be tacky and vulgar as all hell to use such a ritual (or its absence) as an explicit public statement about the bride’s sexual history. I cannot imagine a Catholic priest approving or permitting that interpretation.
This is apparently another of those wedding customs, like the white bridal gown, that started out as an aesthetic or ritual detail but later got saddled with an explicit sexual interpretation. Needless to say, if your Mom continues to believe that this is the officially recognized meaning of the ritual, she could end up at some point seriously offending somebody and/or embarrassing herself.