The Garter

According to Wikipedia: There is a European wedding tradition for a bride to wear a garter to her wedding. As part of this tradition, towards the end of the remove his new wife's garter, which he tosses to the unmarried reception, the groom will male guests. The symbolism to deflowering is unambiguous. Historically, this tradition relates to the belief that taking an article of the bride's clothing would

bring good luck.^[1] In the middle ages, the groom's men would rush at the new bride to take her garters off her as a prize.^[2] As this often resulted in the destruction of the bride's dress, the tradition arose for the bride to

surrender articles of her clothing, which were tossed to the guests, including the garter.^[1] Nowadays, the privilege of removing the bride's garter is reserved to the groom, while the bride will toss her bouquet.

Another superstition that has circulated is the male equivalent of the bride throwing her bouquet to the unmarried ladies. According to this superstition, the unmarried male wedding guest who successfully catches the garter will be the next man to be headed to the altar from the group of single men at that wedding. Traditionally, the man who caught the garter and the lady who caught the bouquet would share the next dance.^[1]

In our wedding, the lucky single guy was Matthew Kurk and the lucky unmarried woman was Sante's mother, Joanne!

So, from Nova to me, me to Sante, Sante to Matt, and Matt to Joanne! What a beautiful circle!