The ‘throwing of the bouquet’ is one of those great wedding traditions we as wedding caterers are privileged to witness when serving crepes at weddings. The sight of a bride throwing the bouquet over her head with all the single females competing to grab it first is one of those elements which make weddings the special occasions they are.
Sometimes we have seen good natured competition between competitors, other times we have sensed an undercurrent of jealousy and dissatisfaction with the outcome. But it all adds up to an essential part of any wedding.
Usually we don’t get to witness this event as we are often setting up our crepe van away from the wedding ceremony, back at the venue, or we are providing wedding breakfast dessert rather than offering pancakes as an alternative to canapés, so we miss this ritual which is usually performed straight after the ceremony.
However, one version of this tradition we did see at a wedding held somewhere between Cannock and Stafford in Staffordshire was a variation for children. Obviously there was no incentive of an imminent wedding for the competitors in this particular event, but as far as the children were concerned the stakes were just as high: they were competing for sweets.
The bride was obviously very child-friendly and was clearly at home dealing with groups of kids. She arranged them in a group and then tossed a packet of sweets over her head, with the children sliding around on their knees trying to claim the prize.
Fortunately for the competitors there was more than one winner that day as (of course) she had plenty more goodies to offer as a prize and it kept the youngsters involved and entertained in a fun way. No child went away empty-handed – they were all winners and they got their chance at pretending to be like the grown-ups.
The fact that the kids had been eating sweets all afternoon didn’t diminish their appetites for pancakes and we were as busy as usual, providing crepes as an alternative wedding breakfast dessert. Thankfully we weren’t requested to flip pancakes over our heads to the hungry guests, but just for fun, we would have had a go, if we had been asked.
