SHARING THE CAKE and THE WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER
Some years ago, at my beginning as a wedding photographer, I saw, with some interest, a television series about two Italian wedding planners. As a beginner, I learn with them about the protocols and the symbolic and casual moments of the wedding day. My first learning was about the bride on the aisle with the father. The father must give the right arm to the daughter because the, existing no more, sword on the left does not affect the bride in the walk to his beloved, at the altar. Not a problem today but the habit stayed.
Yes. They told me that today’s ceremonies are copies of the aristocratic times of the passed. Men used a sword that completed the father’s outfit with it and, if he was not left-handed, occupied the left side of the bride for easier use with the right hand. Make sense.
The cake. The so-called wedding cake is the last offer from the couple to their guests and family. Today it may be not like that all the time, but this last symbolic act is a special thanks and it happens just before the departure of the couple on their Honeymoon. All of us already saw, in the movies, those horse buggies going away with a bunch of cans and bottles tied to the car and disappearing in the black of the night. The guests stayed a bit longer until the last ones, maybe staggering a bit leaving the party space but, at that time, the wedding photographer was no more.