Not seeing the bride on the morning of the wedding. Throwing the bouquet to single spinster friends. Tying tin cans to the bridal car to ward off evil spirits. Saving the top tier of the wedding cake for the christening of the first child. Wearing white as a symbol of virginity, purity and maidenhood. Is there anything more steeped in superstition - for that read hocus pocus - than a wedding? It doesn’t matter how sane we are in our everyday lives, or how little we care if we walk under a ladder or blank a lone magpie, give us a wedding to plan and we are hurtled back to medieval times, reciting strange little ditties that warn: “Marry in haste, repent at leisure” and chanting: “something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue” as we prepare our witch-busting kit for the big day.

The other evening I found myself momentarily disheartened by some doom-mongering hokum I came across on the internet that warned that Thursdays and Saturdays are the unluckiest days to get married. Saturdays! can you believe it? Apparently, one or other of us will die young if we tie the knot on Saturday, which isn’t a particularly benevolent thing to wish upon the happy couple, is it? Then I got a grip. By that reckoning the bulk of the population is about to croak it prematurely. And how can you really take a rhyme seriously that pronounces that Saturday is unlucky while Monday promises health and wealth? Could there be a more depressing, dreary day to tie the knot? (Besides, everyone would be too busy pulling post-weekend sickies to be bothered to turn up.)

And, then, there’s those superstitions about the most auspicious month to marry. “Marry when the year is new, he’ll be loving, kind and true” goes the old rhyme. Well, that’s all very well for all those who plumped for a winter wedding, but where does it leave those of us who have gone for a spring or summer do? Are we destined to wed a man who is heartless, mean and serially unfaithful? “Marry in May, rue the day” they say, and in my case: “Those who in July do wed, must labour for their daily bread”. (And there was I thinking I could afford to put my feet up after all these months of toiling away on the wedding plans.)

Ultimately, most of us know that wedding superstitions are rubbish, but kind of go along with them anyway. I, for one, will be wearing my grandmother’s engagement ring as my “something old”, practically everything else for my “something new” and something quite hideous and tacky I imagine for my “something blue”. Call me a superstitious old fool, but why dice with the spirit world on this day of all days? Although, if I’m being honest, it’s not the Saturday I’m worried about, it’s the day before: Friday 13th July. Wish me luck at the rehearsals: something tells me I’m going to need it.

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