Wedding Favours and Bombonieres

Let’s start with a question:

What have sugared almonds to do with confetti?

Answer: a confusion of translation. Confetti is the name for real sweets that were eaten by Roman citizens during banquets. The confetti was made of almonds, dried fruits, aromatic seeds, hazelnuts, pine nuts and cinnamon, covered with a sticky honey coating. Traditionally they were served at many important meals, not just weddings. They transferred this habit to every province the Roman Empire conquered.

The introduction of sugar cane into European kitchens in the fifteenth century marked the beginning of the modern era for confetti. Now the confetti could have a hard, bright coloured sugar coating - it had evolved into the sugared almonds we still use today at the end of a wedding reception.

This tradition of serving a mixture of coated sweeties became confused with the throwing of rice, nuts and grains at weddings – an ancient tradition dating back further than recorded history. The origin of throwing confetti over the newlyweds goes back to the pagan rite of showering the couple with grain, as a symbol of fruitfulness. Pagans held the simple belief that the fertility of the seeds would be transferred to the couple. These showers of fertility and flavour were tailored to whatever grew locally and was suitable for cascading over the heads of a newly married couple. To the ancient Assyrians, Hebrews, and Egyptians, rice symbolized fruitfulness, so it was a natural choice of material to be thrown at the new couple, as a symbol of the good wishes of the witnesses. This global tradition of throwing bits of rice, chopped nuts and petals, which translate into Italian as coriandoli, somehow got mixed up with the word confetti. Don’t you feel better for knowing that?

Back to the point! Bombonieres – another Italian word – are little treats or favours. Traditionally a bomboniere was made up of five sugared almonds wrapped in an attractive cloth, often lace, or presented in elegant pouches or boxes. The almonds are said to represent health, wealth, happiness, long life and fertility. An alternative version says that the sweet coating around the bitter nut represents the bitter-sweet union of marriage! As we’ve already seen, Romans gave their newlyweds almonds (remember the coriandoli?) as a fertility charm, and in Sweden there is a Christmas custom of serving a cinnamon-flavoured rice pudding with an almond hidden inside - the person who gets the almond has good luck all year. Finally, Pliny – the famous Roman historian and nature writer - advised that eating almonds would prevent drunkenness - so perhaps giving a handful of almonds to wedding guests was to ensure the celebrations did not get out of hand?

In the Renaissance, wealthy couples gave their wedding guests bombonieres to show off their wealth and cement the alliances that the arranged marriage had put in place. These gifts might have been made of gold or silver and were often decorated with precious stones. Others chose to use small caskets made of crystal, or porcelain, and often these versions were filled with sugar, which was a precious commodity.

Over the centuries the tradition moved down through the social ranks until most families were giving away some small token to their guests at the end of the wedding meal. For example, in the sixteenth and seventeenth century, brides and grooms in the UK often gave away love knots made out of lace and ribbons – perhaps even fabrics the couple had actually made themselves in this period where hand-looming was still common and every piece of lace had to be individually tatted.

So when you’re planning your wedding, consider how you’d like to bring this ancient good luck tradition up to date. Boxes can be purchased and filled with sugared almonds, and you can personalise the content to refer to your own wedding: there are cartoon character boxes,hats,hearts and flowers. You can include chocolate treats in funny or romantic shapes, or even personalise the chocolates with your own names and wedding date. You can even stay away from the sweeties altogether - a good idea if you have a diabetic in the family is to use plastic goblets as favours, or fill boxes with personalised balloons for your guests to take away with them.