Medieval Weddings
Medieval and Renaissance Weddings are the
"newest" old trend in weddings. Movies like "Ever
After" and "Elizabeth" are helping the resurgence in
interest. Medieval and Renaissance fairs are growing
yearly and doing a booming wedding business as well.
Today's weddings have most people wearing clothes
they would not normally wear. Medieval weddings take
this one step farther to renting a costume instead
of a tuxedo.
Medieval weddings also have the added
advantage of being an unusual event with all the
excitement of a costumed ball. Many modern wedding
customs are holdovers from medieval and ancient
times. Tossing the bride's garter is from the belief
that a piece of the bridle attire was a lucky token.
Medieval brides started wearing many ribbons to keep
their clothing from being shredded by over zealous
luck seekers. The bride's hair was often worn loose
and uncovered or held down with a golden circlet. A
married women's hair was almost always covered. A
reception with food and drink followed weddings then
as now, with the drink of choice being honey mead.
The new couple would drink honey mead for a month
after the wedding, leading to the modern
"honeymoon".
Medieval feasts were served in courses and
each course was like a meal in itself. There was
entertainment during and between the courses. There
was a presentation of the courses as well as
sotelties and warners. Sotelties are scenes or
sculptures and entertainment made with foodstuff and
warners are disguised food. The nursery rhyme about
the singing blackbirds baked in a pie, is a
soltetlie from a medieval feast. An example of a
warner would be a peach made of marzipan. Feasts
were often served on medieval disposable plates,
bread trenchers. People ate with their hands, a
spoon and a small knife the size of a steak knife.
Forks were not used in the middle ages. They were
not unknown, but were only conversation pieces among
royally and very wealthy.
Clothing Ideas Page
One of the most important elements for a
medieval wedding is the costumes. They really give
the medieval feel to the event. The bride should
pick a time period that has gown styles that she
likes. If warm weather, time or budget is a major
factor, choose an earlier medieval time. The
clothing was much simpler. Therefore can be made of
lighter weight materials and the styles are cheaper
& easier to make. Renaissance and Elizabethan gowns
are time consuming and costly to make also wearing
such heavy clothing can make you and your guests
very hot. If you live in the warmer states and want
a Renaissance or Elizabethan wedding, be sure to
pick a cool or cold time of year for your wedding.
There are many good costume and history books in
the library and at the book stores that will help
you pick historic clothing. Most Hollywood movies
are not a good source for accurate costumes. Here
are some links to help you.
All
these links take a long time to download. But the
images are well worth the wait.
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$4.50
