Rain on the Wedding Day

Title: Rain on the Wedding Day

General Information about Item:

  • Customary Folklore: Belief, Superstition
  • English
  • Italy

Informant Data:

  • Damiano Benvegnu was born in 1977 in a tiny town called Albergo, which is located in the Dolomites region in the northeastern Italian Alps. He spent most of his childhood living in Turkey and Algeria, but he returned to live in Italy at the age of 10. He is currently an Italian professor at Dartmouth College. He has attended 5-10 Italian weddings.

Contextual Data:

  • Social/Cultural Context: In Italy, rain on the day of a wedding symbolizes that the couple will have good luck in their relationship and their marriage. This belief is fairly universal throughout Italy, and was collected by informants who live in Northern, Southern, and Central Italy.

Item:

  • The informant noted that although rain can be dismal on the day of a wedding, it is actually seen to be a sign of good luck in Italian culture. This is because of strong connections between rain, growth, and fertility.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

Transcript of Associated File:

  • “It’s a good sign if it rains the day of the wedding, although it’s a pain for everybody, but it is actually a good sign… I think that the rain is associated still with the kind of cycle of nature, so the fact that is fertility”

Informant’s Comments:

  • The informant believed that since rain is commonly associated with the cycle of nature and growth, rain on the day of the wedding symbolizes that the couple will experience fertility in their relationship and will have a big, happy family.

Collector’s Comments:

  • Rain is associated with springtime and new growth. Society draws a connection between rain and fertility because new plant growth in soil is similar to the development of a child in the womb.

Collector’s Name: Isabella Florissi, Peter Loomis and Katie Toal

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