The Wishbone Tradition
The latest wedding favor idea on the market and one of the most clever we've seen, the wishbone tradition is growing in popularity at gatherings and functions everywhere.

How it works at weddings: Give these Lucky Break Wishbones to your wedding or shower guests as your gift of luck for each of them. Or you can give each couple a pair of wishbones; one to keep for themselves, and one to make a wish for the bride and groom.

You can hold the wishbone tradition at any time during the celebration, but we've found this works best shortly before or after the garter and bouquet tossing traditions. Whichever moment you pick, have your DJ, Best Man, or designated MC announce, "It’s time to make a wish!" The rest is pretty self-explanatory, but feel free to lay down a few fun rules like requesting that wishes be made for the bridal couple or that each couple makes a wish for the person holding the other end of their wish bone. Afterwards you can collect the broken wishbone pieces and save them in a keepsake box as a symbol of the love and good wishes from your family and friends.

The History of the Wish Bone
The wish bone dates back to around 320 BC, and it started with a hen, not a turkey! The Etruscans, who lived on the Italian peninsula, believed that fowl were able to tell the future because a hen would squawk before laying an egg and a rooster would crow to announce the dawning of a new day. This led to "hen oracles;" if you wanted an answer to a question, you would draw a circle on the ground and divide it into sections, and within each wedge write a letter from the Etruscan alphabet. Grains of corn were then placed in each section, and the all-knowing bird was led into the circle to peck at the kernels. The order in which it pecked was recorded by a scribe and interpreted by high priests, believing the fowl was spelling out words or that each letter began a word in its mystical message. The chicken was then sacrificed and its collarbone hung out to dry. It was considered sacred, and anyone was allowed to stroke an unbroken bone and make a wish, thus the name wishbone.

It is said that the Romans took on the Etruscan custom as their own, and as they fought over who would get the good fortune they broke the bones. The "winner" who got their wish was the one holding the largest piece of bone, and it became known as a "lucky break". This symbolism later spread to England and came over to the New World with the pilgrims. Upon discovering the woods filled with wild turkeys, they changed the custom from the chicken bone to the turkey bone. Today we have lucky wishbones and the rest is history!