Which regional wedding customs still survive in Britain and Ireland?

Wedding customs in these islands are unusually local. A custom that is standard in Aberdeenshire is unknown in Kent, and several of them are practised in one county and nowhere else.

This article walks through the main regional survivals, what each one involves and roughly how widespread it is. Where the origin is disputed, it says so. It is a description rather than a recommendation: most couples adopt one or two of these because of family, and knowing what a custom means is usually what decides it.

Scotland has kept more distinct wedding customs than anywhere else in these islands, and several are still in ordinary use rather than being revived for effect.

• The blackening. Friends cover the bride, the groom or both in a mixture of anything unpleasant to hand, then parade them through the town. It is strongest in the north east and in fishing communities, and it happens in the days before the wedding.
• The quaich. A two-handled shallow cup, shared by the couple during or after the ceremony. The two handles are usually explained as trust between the drinkers, since neither hand is free.
• The piper. Piping the couple in and out, and piping guests to the meal. Common enough to be a standard supplier rather than a novelty.
• The scramble. Coins thrown to children outside the church or as the bride leaves home, known in some places as a scoor-oot or a warsel.
• Highland dress. Worn by guests as well as the wedding party, and treated as the formal equivalent of black tie or morning dress.

Scots law also differs in ways that shape the day: humanist and other belief marriages have been legally recognised in Scotland since 2005, and outdoor weddings have long been simpler there than in England and Wales.

Welsh customs are quieter and mostly object-based, and two of them have travelled well beyond Wales.

The lovespoon. Carved wooden spoons given as courtship tokens, documented from at least the seventeenth century. Symbols on the handle carry meanings: a heart for love, a key for a home, beads or balls for the number of children hoped for, a wheel for work. They are now given as wedding and anniversary gifts as often as courtship ones, at roughly 15 to 100 pounds in Wales depending on the carving, and appreciably more by the time one reaches an American buyer.

Myrtle in the bouquet. A sprig of myrtle in the bride's flowers, sometimes planted afterwards, with a cutting kept for the next bride in the family. The custom is associated with royal bouquets, which have included myrtle from a bush at Osborne House since the nineteenth century, and it is followed in Welsh families independently of that.

The horseshoe. Given to the bride by a child at the church door in some areas, silver or fabric rather than iron.

Older customs appear in accounts and are rarely practised now, including the wedding quintain and the mock capture of the bride by her family before the ceremony. Where they are performed today it is usually as a revival rather than an unbroken tradition, and it is worth saying so.

Irish customs mix Catholic church practice with older folk elements, and several are still widely followed north and south.

• The Claddagh ring. Hands, heart and crown, from the fishing village of Claddagh near Galway. Worn with the heart pointing inward once married. Used as a wedding band by some couples and as an heirloom by many more.
• The magic hanky. A linen handkerchief carried by the bride, later stitched into a bonnet for a christening, and unpicked back into a handkerchief for that child's own wedding. One of the few customs that is explicitly designed to be handed down.
• Bells. Small bells given as favours or rung during the ceremony, often explained as keeping ill luck away.
• The horseshoe. As in Britain, carried rather than hung, points upward.
• Making the match at the meal. A tradition in some areas of seating unmarried guests together, which is the older ancestor of a great deal of modern seating-plan folklore.

Two further customs are widely repeated online and are much less securely evidenced than the ones above: the braided hair said to ward off ill luck, and the specific claim that the bride must keep both feet on the floor while dancing. Both are often said to be traditional, and neither is well documented.

English survivals are fewer and cluster around the church, which is unsurprising given how much of the English wedding was governed by it.

The top tier custom is worth a note. The tradition was to keep it for the christening of a first child, which worked when cakes were heavy fruit cakes soaked in alcohol and would genuinely keep for a year. It works considerably less well with a sponge, which is why the custom has faded rather than because anyone objected to it.

Couples increasingly borrow from a partner's region, or from a grandparent's. That is how these customs have always travelled, and there is no gatekeeping to worry about with most of them. A few points make it work better.

1. Find out what it means first. Several of these customs have explanations that families disagree about, and asking is usually more interesting than reading.
2. Ask the family who own it. A grandmother who is asked to explain the magic hanky will often produce one.
3. Explain it to your guests. A quaich passed around a room of people who have never seen one produces confusion rather than a moment. Two sentences from the officiant fixes it.
4. Check with the venue. Pipers, coin throwing and anything involving fire or food need clearing in advance.
5. Do not stack them. Three borrowed customs in one ceremony turns a wedding into a demonstration.

The one custom worth thinking twice about is the blackening, which is genuinely unpleasant if the person at the centre of it has not agreed to it. Like every pre-wedding ritual involving a captive participant, it works when it is a shared joke and fails badly when it is not.

If you are including anything guests will not recognise, put a short note about it with the order of service or on your wedding website. People enjoy a custom far more when they know what they are watching.