For those unfamiliar, The Garter Toss is a wedding tradition where the bride throws the garter piece that’s used to keep her stalking in place into a crowd of bachelors. The lucky man who catches the garter is supposed to be blessed in that it’s expected that his bachelor days are now numbered –the guy version of the bouquet toss, basically. We should mention that the removal of the garter piece is traditionally made to be a bit of a show too. The bride raises her dress slightly and the groom removes it from her leg, while the guests at the reception look on.
You’ve either just shrugged at that or thought, heck, no! And for the record, both are valid responses. This wedding tradition is derisive for obvious reasons. There’s a famous skit by the late comic George Carlin where, (to paraphrase) he pointed out that while driving, anyone going slower than you is an idiot and anyone speeding by you is crazy. It was a genius way of pointing out how we use our own comfort level as a gauge in which to judge the world around us. That analogy doesn’t just work for driving. It’s also accurate to how we judge things that could be considered risqué. We leave it to you, the readers, to make that judgment for yourself.
You should know there shouldn’t be any pressure to partake in this. It’s a tradition, yes, but it’s hardly the staple that the bouquet toss is. And if you don’t mind tossing the garter, but aren’t keen on having a ballroom full of friends and family members watch your newly christened husband strip off an undergarment, there’s no hardline rule that the removal must we watched. You’re more than welcome to remove the garter piece somewhere private, like your dressing room or the nearest bathroom. You are free to remind any guest that has strong opinions that doing that somehow “ruins the spirit” of the tradition just whose damned wedding it is. There’s also no stone tablet decreeing that “The Garter Toss” has to involve a garter at all. Think about it. The main point of the tradition is to give the boys something to run after and give hope to romantically-inclined bachelors that their time will come. You are more than welcome to substitute another object for the event–a second bouquet? A cloth wristlet? Super Bowl tickets? Whatever you can think off. A tradition can certainly adapt to change with the times, and you’ll be a trend-setter to boot.
Now, we’ve been pretty hard on the garter toss so far, and we want to point out that we’ve seen our fair share of smiles and rancorous laughter because of it. As long as the wedding couples’ comfort is first considered, the garter toss can be a fun reception event. If for no other reason that it’s memorable to watch a crowd of men chase after a piece of fabric like it’s a winning lottery ticket, or scatter to the four winds as they run in fear of it.
