The Birth of the Wedding Toast

One of the oldest wedding traditions that we still take part in, and almost subconsciously, is the wedding toast. Nowadays, toasting seems to be such a normal thing that everyone does regardless of where they are. It could be at home with a few loved ones over a home-cooked meal, it could be in a bar with work colleagues or it might even be between you and your partner during a romantic dinner.

However, wedding toasts are often seen as a much more elegant and emotionally-charged version of the toast. It’s become an important symbol during a wedding and it’s a gesture that has a deep history that dates all the way back to ancient times. So in this article, we’re going to take a dive into the old ritual of toasting and find out where exactly it comes from and how it came to be such a common staple at weddings.

What Exactly Is a Toast?

A toast is essentially a small ritual that helps you show a gesture of goodwill or even honour to the person you’re toasting to. It usually always involves a drink, mostly of the alcoholic variety, and can be a small gesture or something that follows a long piece of dialogue such as a best man speech.

Toasts are usually considered to be rooted in Western culture, but it’s slowly being adopted around the world as a kind of formal expression of goodwill. While it used to be a very elegant expression, toasting nowadays can simply mean raising your glass in the direction of the person that proposes the toast.

Where Did Toasting Come From?

The exact origin of toasting and where it began is still a little unclear. Some sources say that toasting was a tradition that started in the 6th century B.C. The idea was that you would toast to a friend’s health and clink your glasses together, causing the drink (be it wine, beer or anything else) to spill from one cup to another, essentially mixing the beverages. This would prove to the person you’re toasting to that the wine was not poisoned. While this seems entirely plausible, there’s actually no real evidence of this happening in the past.

Another possible origin of toasting dates back to ancient societies such as ancient Greece. During celebrations, the Greeks would raise their cup as a symbol of offering to their gods. However, there is also evidence that they would toast to each others health, though it's unclear if it was for the purpose of splash wine into each others cups. However, drinking to ones health can be seen in The Odyssey, an ancient Greek epic poem where Ulysses drank to Achilles health.

Toasting was also a practice among the Romans. Similar to the Greeks and the 6th-century account, it was used by toasting to a friends health. In fact, the Romans decided that it was such an important gesture that it became a mandatory part of their society. At one time, the Senate decreed that everyone would be required to toast to Emperor Augustus before eating their meals.

However, the term toast wasn't around until the 16th century. In fact, one of the first accounts of the written word is in a Shakespeare play; The Merry Wives of Windsor. The exact quote is "Go fetch me a quart of sack; put a toast in't" which means they quite literally put a piece of toasted bread in the wine. This is the exact moment we started to call this gesture a toast. This served two purposes; it would soak up the acidity in the wine to make it more palatable, and it would also make a stale piece of bread edible.

Over the next few centuries, the term toast gradually became a part of English vocabulary and was used as a gesture of goodwill and honour during times of celebration such as a large banquet. When the piece of toast was still being used, the person that was honoured would receive it.

Excessive Toasting in the 17th and 18th Centuries

During the 17th and 18th centuries, toasting actually became somewhat of a problem. Instead of the modest sip that we practice today when toasting, it was common to guzzle down an excessive amount of alcohol after the toast took place. As a result, when toasting several people it was easy to get drunk and some would use this as an excuse to toast as many people as possible during an event or celebration!

The solution? Toastmasters! Though the name is amusing, toastmasters served a very important purpose; to ensure that no one was toasting too much and that everyone got their turn to toast the person or people being honoured. Thankfully, today's toasting etiquette means that we no longer have to consume much alcohol at all during a toast and the gesture alone is enough. In fact, you're expected to leave enough alcohol in your glass so that you can participate in the toast or else it would be seen as rude!

The Birth of the Wedding Toast

These days, toasting is very common at weddings and usually follows a long speech. In the past, toasting was used to join both families together especially when they were at each other's throats. Wars between neighbouring families often ended with marriage between a child from both families. This would end the wars in a truce and be a cause for a celebration banquet to take place. During this banquet, the families would toast to each other and drink from a communal wine pitcher to show that the wine wasn't poisoned and that the wedding wasn't a ruse designed to end the war with entirely different intentions.

Thankfully, we usually don't have to think about poisoned wine during a wedding in the modern day. Instead, a toast is a common, simple yet often emotional gesture that we perform at a wedding. It's a gesture of goodwill, a symbol of the joining of two families and a celebration of the marriage between two people.