Add touches of Italy to your wedding planning by choosing to include Italian wedding customs in your preparation, ceremony and reception.

Italian Wedding Customs.

Traditionally, the Italian bride wore green to symbol fertility, so you might want to consider choosing green bridesmaid dresses to honor that tradition.  My Wedding Chat has selected a few from WeddingShoppeInc.com so you can pick the perfect green bridesmaid dress for your girls: Here are more marriage customs that you might consider if you or your groom is of Italian heritage:

• In northern Italy, the groom and his family often choose the bride’s bouquet, which is waiting for her when she arrives at the church. (One less piece of wedding planning for the bride to worry about!)
• Ribbons adorn the entrance to the church to symbolize two lives being tied together in marriage.
• The groom carries a piece of iron for good luck and protection against evil.
• At the end of the wedding ceremony (or reception), the bride and groom smash a glass item together, with the number of pieces foretelling the number of happy years together.
• Attendees toss sweet candies at the bride and groom, which are almonds covered in sugar. The whiteness of the candy represents purity, while the taste represents life’s sweetness and bitterness. Tradition says that tossing this candy also helps ensure that the couple will have a large family.
• At the wedding reception, guests are served cheese, olives, mushrooms, calamari and pickled sweet peppers – and then meat, pasta, fruit and soup, along with traditional Italian desserts.
• Attendees dance an increasingly faster paced wedding dance called the Tarantella, in which they dance in a circle, switch directions, and speed up until no one can keep up.

Choose a few of these Italian wedding customs to tie into your wedding day. And don't forget to select a green bridesmaid dress your bridal party is guaranteed to fall in love with from a variety of dresses online at WeddingShoppeInc.com! Watch My Wedding Chat for information about more intriguing marriage customs that can add just the right touch to your wedding planning, ceremony and reception.