This is why July has been called an unlucky month for weddings

You’re out to lunch, helping your friend plan her wedding. You’re on the topic of date and offer up the month of July. It’s warm, sunny, and perhaps she could have a beach wedding. But then, a suspicious character emerges from the shadows and mutters, “Married in July with flowers ablaze, bitter-sweet memories in after days.”

What could she mean? Will a July wedding really cause that much strife in the marriage?

There are several anonymous antique rhymes that brides of old took stock in back in the day. Like the warning during your lunch date, these rhymes are based on cultural suspicion, and not on fact or logic.

But even though we can write these bad luck rhymes off as things from the past, we still heed the advice of other old sayings and traditions revolving around weddings. For instance, you’ve probably heard of brides wearing something borrowed, something new, and something blue during their wedding to bring luck to the marriage.

That tradition also comes from an old rhyme similar to those about unlucky wedding months. If we heed this rhyme’s advice, then in fairness, shouldn’t we heed the advice of the rhyme that tells us not to marry in July?

But if you’re set on a July wedding, don’t worry too much. Many believe that May is notoriously the worst month to wed. This is due to ancient pagan beliefs centered around the celebration of Beltane, which relied heavily on sex. Romans celebrated the dead during May, and therefore thought it to be a bad omen to mix marriage and death in the same month.

Don’t feel pressured to buy into archaic superstitions. Times have changed and months are simply months!

Although, if you think that following these superstitions might lead you to a happier married life, then by all means listen to the character from paragraph one. Avoid the “bitter-sweet memories” and pick April or June to get married over the dreaded July.