My heart is always moved when the bride and groom spend time on their wedding day washing each other’s feet, directly imitating Christ at the Last Supper.

While it is not a staple of a Catholic wedding, it is an optional devotion that brings with a lot of symbolism and beauty. Our siblings, friends, and clients have all added this into their wedding day and we’ve seen it celebrated across the country from the Midwest to the Atlantic!

What is the foot washing tradition?

At some point during the wedding day, a bride and groom gather a water basin, pitcher, and towel and each kneel down to wash the feet of the other. The groom typically goes first, followed by the bride.

This is done either privately, near the adoration chapel or a side area after the wedding mass with only the newlyweds and photographer present, or publicly with guests around to witness it. We’ve seen both at wedding days. Some priests have given permission for couples to do this during the wedding ceremony after all the guests have received communion. Other times we have seen couples wait until the reception to do this during the cocktail hour or later on after toasts and speeches have concluded prior to dancing.

The symbolism behind it

We love this so much because you clearly see in their first hours of being married, the couple begins practicing what it means to serve the other out of love, stepping back in humility, removing any selfishness rooted in the desire to be served, and instead choose to give of themselves.

If you’ve been in any kind of relationship, you know how easily the temptation comes to shift the spotlight to yourself: Your wants. Your needs. Your frustrations. Your happiness. Your desire to get your way above another’s. A pride that creeps into our hearts. It is just part of our human nature, something we all must face and combat in order to live truly virtuous lives.

Moments like this come along and different days in the liturgical year arrive and you remember again how our human nature is meant to be transformed to be like Christ.

So you look to what He did with his life.
He laid his life down for his friends.
He took the lowly position to serve his friends.
Not by demanding recognition for what he’s done, instead he simply focused on doing acts of love.

St. Thomas Aquinas calls the moment when Christ washes the disciples feet as him “treading underfoot the universal tendency to pride” by emptying Himself.

By doing a washing of the feet on a wedding day, it encourage others to reflect on the true goal of marriage: to mirror Christ and model His total, irrevocable love for the Church. Laying his life down for her. Not coming to be served, but to serve her.

Which is why moments like this when a husband and wife are kneeling before each other, mutually serving the other, are so beautiful! They are reflecting that exact kind of love that Christ showed his disciples.

And the couple is starting their marriage this way from day one. Committing themselves to living their marriage this way until death do them part.

In that simple and humble act the bride and groom are flipping the script on self-focus and choosing mutual self-gift instead.

This is the posture of heart every relationship needs

If every husband and every wife lived out their vocation this way, I am confident that we would see even more holy marriages, holy families.

And that would even more so strengthen the body of Christ and in turn sanctify the world.