This is probably a really stupid question, but who keeps the garter?

Personally I have never seen the guy that catches the garter put it on the girl with the bouquet. I've seen some people just go on about the night after the tosses and I've seen others who make the two dance (I have been one of the people awkwardly dancing with a stranger) but it was cute! In both instances the guy keeps the toss garter. If you want to mix it up then do whatever you like

The girl keeps the bouquet and the guy keeps the garter as far as I know. If I'm wrong I'm sorry LOL

I've never seen the guy out the garter on the girl who caught the bouquet. Usually I see the garter get left at a table lol

That tradition really needs to go. It is so awkward and makes the evening uncomfortable.

If you are making the guy who catches it put it on a girl, she would keep it. I would recommend just skipping that part, you could still do the toss.

In our area, the guy who catches it, puts it on the girl that caught the bouquet. And (as a girl that caught the bouquet once), the garder is returned to said guy afterwards!

The guy who catches the garter puts it on the girl who catches the bouquet and for every inch above the knee, it means more happy years for the couple or something like that. It's a lot of fun and I have never been to a wedding where the guy did not put it on the girl. After the song and embarassment is over then the girl takes off the garter and gives it back to the guy.

The guy gets to keep the garter.

Can I tell you what my favorite thing ever was?

The girl that caught the garter sat on a chair and the guy that caught the bouquet was blindfolded and told to put the garter on the girl's leg. The DJ moved the guy over to where the 'girl' was sitting but by that time the groom had sat down on the chair and pulled up his pant leg. The guys face as he started to put the garter on was HILARIOUS! Plus the girl didn't get groped by a random stranger. The wedding guests all thought it was great and the guy who put the garter on had a great sense of humor about the whole thing.

I 100000% agree with Pezzy. If my guy wanted this tradition, I'd tell him to STFU haha, but he was actually aghast when I told him what the garter toss is. If you want to change your groom's mind, make him read this -- http://people.howstuffworks.com/culture-traditions/cultural-traditions/history-of-the-wedding-garter-tradition.htm

I think that would be really awkward to have some random guy put it on me if I were a guest. I don't like the garter traditions at all though, it started as a way that people would know you were having sex the night of your marriage, do I really need to put those thoughts in my family's mind?I am sure that everyone can assume that but I think it is awkward, plus the whole going up my dress in front of people is awkward to me too. I do like Cece's comment though.

I totally agree with you guys that it is terrible. I have tried EVERYTHING to talk him out of it. He has had say in 2 things, both things that I was completely against, but it is the only thing that he has really wanted. The reason for the post was because my friend wanted my garter and she was curious if she caught the bouquet if she would get to keep it. We had made a joke that if he put it on her leg, he wasnt getting it back. Im sure she will somehow end up begging whoever gets it and end up with it, but thats beside the point. Then we started thinking about it and werent sure who keeps it then. Im not trying to start a huge discussion about it. As I said in my initial post, Im not happy with the idea, and if it was only up to me, I would definitely not be doing it. However, its a compromise, and if its between a garter & him wearing the camo suit that he wanted, Ill take the garter any day. Before allowing FH to even think about it, we went through the guest list and wrote down all of the single people, and made a decision based on their personalities whether it would be a problem. If a certain girl catches the bouquet, the DJ knows to skip it, because shes very quiet and shy. Other than that, no one is going to be embarassed. No one is going to care, neither FH or I have ever been to a wedding where it hasnt been done, and the DJ said its very popular here. I guess its a "local tradition" I just never paid attention to what happened to the garter after that.