Hey soon-to-be married ladies and gents! You have most certainly heard this saying before:

Something old,
something new,
something borrowed,
something blue,
and a silver sixpence in her shoe.

Aside from the silver sixpence, we still adhere to using these charms for “good luck.” But, how did we come up with these charms for good luck in the first place?

According to Jacobs and Nutt, authors of Folklore, the rhyme appears to originate in 1898 England (so that’s where the sixpence comes from):

In this country an old couplet directs that the bride shall wear:— “Something old, something new, Something borrowed, something blue.” “The something blue” takes, I am given to understand, usually the form of a garter, an article of dress which plays an important part in some wedding rites, as, for instance, in the old custom of plucking off the garter of the bride. “The something old” and ” something blue” are devices to baffle the Evil Eye. The usual effect on the bride of the Evil Eye is to render her barren, and this is obviated by wearing “something borrowed”, which should properly be the undergarment of some woman who has been blessed with children: the clothes communicate fertility to the bride. (page 128)

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