What people say
The groom must not see the dress; something old, new, borrowed, blue; rain on the day is lucky.Ceremony · 1,780 searches a month
Wedding superstitions
The groom must not see the dress; something old, new, borrowed, blue; rain on the day is lucky.
When it actually starts
How old is this one
First recorded
"Something old, something new" first printed in 1871
That makes it
about 155 years old
Rank by age
34 oldest of 40 dated here
Category
Ceremony
Searched
1,780 a month
Most wedding customs presented as ancient are Victorian. The rhyme dates to a Lancashire collection of 1871, the white dress to Queen Victoria in 1840 — before that brides simply wore their best dress, in any colour.
What is going on
The not-seeing rule comes from arranged marriages, where a meeting before the ceremony risked one party withdrawing.Where it applies. The specific rhyme is British and American; other traditions have entirely different lists.
Other ceremony superstitions
Recorded around the same time
Wedding superstitions is the 34th oldest of the 40 dated superstitions here. Of those, 6 are younger than a century and 5 predate the common era.
First-recorded dates are the earliest documented appearance in written sources, not the earliest possible origin — an unrecorded practice can be older. How the dating works and where it is uncertain →