Heroines of the Past
Weddings
September 1, 2006, Published by A to Z Designs - P.O. Box 429; Wright, WY 82732Amy’s Corner
Summers are the most prominent time for weddings. Nothing puts a girl in the mood for a wedding as much as attending one or perhaps even being in the wedding party. This past summer my older sister married the love of her life and my younger sister and I were honored to serve as bride’s maids. What a beautiful day, full of joy and excitement. In this edition of Heroines of the Past we will take a look at weddings and how they were done hundreds of years ago.
Sincerely yours,
Amy Puetz
A Little About Weddings
During colonial days weddings were usually in the fall after harvest.In pioneer days the bride’s wedding cake was called a stack cake because all the guests would bring one layer and then when they arrived they would stack the cake together. The bride’s popularity was measured by how many layers she had.
It was customary for brides during the Victorian era to attend a lavish breakfast with family and friends before the wedding.
It was Queen Victoria who helped start the tradition of white wedding dresses. Before her time wedding dresses varied in color. Blue was the most prominent color because in that era it signified purity. After her wedding to Prince Albert fashionable brides began wearing white dresses to their weddings.
Vintage Wedding Links
http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodcolonial.html#colonial a link to Colonial wedding traditions, it even has a recipe for a Colonial wedding cake.http://www.lahacal.org/wed.html this web-site has information about the Victorian wedding. It even has a reprint of a manners book from the Victorian era.
http://www.burrows.com/booknotes/wedding.html this site also contains a chapter on marriage and courtship from a book printed in 1893.
http://www.vintagewedding.com/ everything you would want for a vintage wedding is at this site.
Wedding Bells
This picture is of my great-great grandparents, Rosalie Traughber and John Henry Austin on their wedding day, April 18, 1903. They had fifteen children. Rosalie taught my granddaddy, Johnny Mathias McKinney, to shoot a gun and hunt. She must have been quite a gal!
Love Quotes
Never Marry but for Love; but see that thou lov’st what is lovely.
William Penn
Love comforteth like sunshine after rain.
William Shakespeare
I pay very little regard...to what a young person says on the subject of marriage. If they profess a disinclination for it, I only set it down that they haven’t seen the right person yet.
Jane Austen
I have found that a man will usually be as much of a gentleman as a lady requires and probably no more.
Elisabeth Elliot
Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no, it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempest and is never shaken.
Shakespeare