Word of the Week: ‘lancer le bouquet’

Bonsoir tout le monde ! (And sorry this post is so overdue!)

I haven’t updated the blog so far this week as I’ve just come back from Italy, where my cousin’s been celebrating her wedding.

Here’s to another wedding-linked Word of the Week! 💍👰🏻🥂🎉

Word of the Week:

Lancer le bouquet.

How to pronounce it:

Lahn-say luh boo-kay.

What it means in English:

Literally meaning ‘to throw (or launch) the bouquet’, the expression refers to the wedding tradition of a bride throwing her bouquet so that a lucky guest can catch it and, as tradition has it, be next in line to get married.

Where does it come from?

The website of the French edition of Cosmopolitan explains that brides would traditionally carry bouquets of orange blossoms at their wedding, as the flower was a symbol of purity.

After this, around the sixteenth century, men would chase after brides, hoping to catch their bouquet, as apparently it was considered good luck to touch the bride or her clothes. In the period following the First World War, the bridal bouquet would often be placed under a glass dome on a velvet cushion so that it could be preserved throughout the life of the married couple.

How to use it in a sentence: