Tossing The Bouquet At A Wedding

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Tossing the bouquet has it's roots in tradition but serves for entertainment of the wedding party. The unmarried ladies gather about 5-15 meters behind the bride. The bride turns her back to them and tosses her bouquet over her shoulder to them. The woman who manages to catch the bouquet is supposed to get married next.

As such, the toss is a relatively simple matter but there is room for things to go awry, according to Murphy's Law. Anything that can go wrong will. Here are some of the gotcha's.

The Miss

The bouqet misses it's target and strikes the ground (worse still, it strikes something which can break, get scratched or get hurt). If it strikes the ground - nothing is lost. Just repeat the act, hoping that things will go better this time. To avoid the second scenario, give the surroundings a good look over and adjust the location if neccessary.

The Hit

The bouquet toss takes place indoors and the bouquet hits the ceiling, a fixture, a lamp or anything else up there. In the most benign case, the bouquet will continue it's trajectory (perhaps deflected slightly) and still manage to get caught. On the other hand, it could set forth it's flight with a new trajectory and avoid being caught. In this case repeat the toss. Worse still, it might cause one or more objects it has struck to become dislodged from the ceiling and come crashing to the ground or - horrors - land on a person's head. The bouquet may also prefer to remain lodged in a lamp or other fixture sufficiently high above the ground to avoid being taken down easily. For this reason, outdoor tosses are preferable to indoor tosses.

The Lost Image

The bouquet toss is indoors, in the dark. This scenarion can tax many wedding photographers, since their flash and fast-action shooting skills in a dark environment really tests their skill and experience. Fast action and low light are incompatible and usually their flash setup will not be able to cover both the bride and the waiting ladies in a single shot. It may therefore be preferable to shoot the toss outdoors in daylight to get a good image.