The Bouquet Toss and Garter Toss

Somewhere between booking the venue and finalising the run sheet, most couples hit the same small decision: do we actually do the bouquet toss and garter toss, or quietly leave them off? Neither tradition is compulsory, and increasingly, neither one gets done at all. Here's what they actually are, where they came from, and what NZ couples are doing instead.

At a glance

• The garter toss traces to post-WWII entertainment, not medieval custom, no evidence of a staged version exists before the mid-1950s.

• Both traditions have gone from expected to optional at NZ weddings, with no social cost either way.

• The anniversary dance, inviting every married couple to the floor, is the most popular replacement for the bouquet toss.

• Skipping either one needs no announcement, just leave it off the run sheet when you brief your MC.

Where these traditions actually come from

The garter toss has a surprisingly well-documented recent history. Fashion historian Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell has found no evidence of a staged garter toss happening at a wedding before the mid-1950s, tracing the modern version instead to post-war USO entertainment, where performers tossed garters to soldiers in the audience. That imagery got picked up by celebrities and, by the 1960s, wedding magazines were calling it an official tradition, despite it being only a decade or two old at that point.

The bouquet toss's own origin is murkier. The most repeated explanation, that guests once tried to tear pieces from a bride's dress or flowers for good luck, and tossing the bouquet gave them a safer outlet, shows up across a lot of wedding content, but no single well-documented source pins down exactly when or where that shift happened. Worth knowing it's more folklore than confirmed history. For the fuller story on where wedding superstitions like this actually come from, see Something Old, Something New: Where NZ's Favourite Wedding Traditions Actually Come From.

Are they still common at NZ weddings?

There's no reliable New Zealand survey on this, so it's worth being honest rather than inventing a number. What's clear from talking to celebrants, MCs and photographers, and from how reception run sheets actually get built here, is that both traditions have shifted from default to optional. Plenty of NZ weddings still include one or both, usually as a bit of fun rather than a required milestone. Just as many skip both entirely, and nobody at the reception seems to notice or mind either way.

NZ weddings generally lean less tradition-bound than the version of "wedding culture" that shows up in a lot of American content, and reception extras like these are treated as genuinely couple's-choice items on the run sheet, not fixed stops every reception has to hit.

Reasons couples are opting out

The garter toss is the one couples most often drop first. It involves a partner retrieving a garter from underneath the bride's dress in front of the whole room, which plenty of couples, and plenty of families, find more awkward than fun, especially with grandparents and young cousins watching. It's a small moment that can land very differently depending on who's in the room.

The bouquet toss causes less discomfort generally, but couples still skip it for reasons of their own: not wanting to publicly single out the single guests, having a reception where most people are already married or partnered, or simply preferring to spend that slice of the evening on something else, more time on the dance floor, another round of drinks, a breather before speeches.

Both traditions have shifted from default to optional, and just as many receptions skip both entirely, and nobody at the reception seems to notice or mind either way.

Popular alternatives

The anniversary dance is the most common replacement for the bouquet toss. The MC invites every married couple onto the floor, then calls out years-married in increasing increments, five years, ten, twenty, asking couples to sit down as their number passes, until the longest-married couple left standing gets a small moment of recognition. It photographs well, includes people of every age rather than only the single guests, and tends to get a genuinely warm reaction from the room.

Other options that come up often: handing the bouquet directly to someone meaningful, a mother, a grandmother, whoever's been married longest, rather than throwing it into a crowd; splitting the flowers into a few smaller posies so several guests each take one home; or simply not replacing the moment at all and letting the dance floor carry on uninterrupted.

What it actually looks like from behind the camera

From a photography and videography standpoint, both traditions live or die on how much energy the room has left by the time they happen. Scheduled too late, after speeches, cake and a couple of hours of dancing, guests are often tired, drinks have slowed the reflexes needed to actually catch a bouquet, and the whole thing can feel flat rather than fun. Scheduled earlier, while the room's still fresh, it tends to land better and photograph better too, a genuine scrum of laughing guests rather than three people half-heartedly shuffling forward.

If you do want the moment, it's worth treating it as a proper highlight rather than an afterthought squeezed in between courses. That means good light (not the point in the night when the dance floor lighting has gone low and moody), guests who've actually been gathered and told what's about to happen, and a bit of space cleared so nobody's tripping over chairs. A half-hearted toss into a distracted room rarely produces a photo worth keeping, and it's genuinely no better than skipping it outright.

How to skip gracefully, without a fuss

The easiest way to skip either tradition is also the least dramatic: don't put it on the run sheet. Brief your MC once, during the same conversation where you're sorting the rest of the reception timeline, and that's the end of it. There's no expectation to announce the decision to guests or explain yourself to family beforehand. Most people at a wedding are focused on the couple, the food and the dance floor, not auditing which optional extras made the final cut.

If one of you would enjoy the garter toss but the other would rather skip it, or vice versa, that's a completely normal thing to work through together rather than defaulting to whichever tradition feels more "expected." The reception is yours to shape. Whether that means keeping both traditions, swapping one for an anniversary dance, or dropping the idea entirely, none of it needs justifying on the night.

Planning your own wedding?

Whatever you decide on the bouquet and garter toss, let us know what's staying on the run sheet and we'll make sure it's scheduled while the room still has the energy to make it worth keeping.