Have you heard of kissing balls? Also known as pomanders, kissing balls are round, decorated bases festooned or studded with flora, ribbons and similar decorating items and hung in a doorway or arch. Not only will you find them in traditional holiday decor, but you’ll also find kissing balls at wedding receptions. Pomanders are fairly simply to make, quite affordable to buy, and they can be customized for your wedding party to match with your wedding theme and colors.
Kissing balls can be used for wedding decorations, but they can also be substitutes for bride’s, bridesmaids’ or flower girls’ bouquets. A soaked, wrapped in open wire mesh, florists foam is covered in moss and studded with flora all over in a way that there’s no glimpse of the base remaining. To enable kissing ball to be swung from a wrist or hung over a table, a long satin ribbon is tied to the wire mesh or secured to the ball with a pin. A decorative pomander may be covered in silk butterflies, feather, artificial flowers, blossoms made from craft paper or newsprint, seashells, buttons, looped ribbon etc. In fact, you can use anything that will stick in or to the underlying round shape.
Originally, kissing balls were used in England during the Middle Ages and they were hung over doorways as a kind of omen of goodwill to anyone who visit. At one point, kissing balls almost disappeared because of the Puritans and their beliefs. Nevertheless, the Victorians brought this tradition back and named it the kissing ball. Kissing balls can be made of silk rose flowers and used as an alternative bridal bouquet or they can hang from a ceiling. At some weddings, these kissing balls were displayed on tables as a centerpiece decoration. Personally, I think that kissing balls are the best way to decorate chair at a wedding.