weddings
Posted by Laura Wallace on November 15, 1997 at 19:43:53:
In response to Social, written by Cassia on November 09, 1997 at 18:42:59
They [weddings] also weren't private occassions. Anyone who had teh times would attend the wedding to give the bride their blessing. You only had the bother of inviting out of towners. Where my mother grew up in the Carribean, this still happens. It really shocks teh Americans.
It still happens today in small towns, at least in the one where I grew up. People don't invite the whole town, but they often issue an open invitation to the whole congregation of the church they attend.
I think that London society had a few "big society weddings" during the Regency (St. George's, Hanover Square), but most of them were small affairs.
"Wedding Breakfasts" were a tradition because the church rules were that one had to be married in the church between 8am and noon. So a wedding could not be a big evening event . (Until Vatican II, Catholic weddings couldn't be held at night, either-- my mom was married in 1966 and was very excited that she could have a night wedding.)
Anyway, I think that some wedding breakfasts were rather like an "at home" or an "open house," where the newly married pair would receive guests and their good wishes.
In the country, even into this century the wedding party would walk from the bride's parents' home to the village church, where the couple marry, sign the register, and they would all walk back home, where they would then greet guests, if there were any. And again, in a small town, it's likely that everyone would just show up. Real aristocrats, if they wanted to keep it private, would marry in the house's chapel, or even in the drawing room (a license would allow them to be married anywhere, not just in a church).
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