Civil wedding ceremonies are not new, but large receptions are

Civil wedding ceremonies are very common in Ireland now with venues varying from houses and hotels to gardens, forests, beaches, boats and whatever you’re having yourself. Solemnisers, or celebrants, are flat out and I’m all for it. I’ve been to a few of these, including my own daughter’s wedding recently and I must say like it. I like the more informal and casual format.

For those of you unfamiliar with the terminology, a solemniser is a fancy name for a person licensed by the State to conduct weddings in Ireland. Only a registered solemniser can perform a legally binding civil wedding ceremony and the main difference between these weddings and the traditional Church weddings is that there is no religious aspect to the civil version.

I say traditional Church weddings, but civil wedding ceremonies have been around long before the Church got involved so they are not new. According to oldmooresalmanac.com, up to the middle of the sixteenth century, many couples chose to get married at home until the Catholic Church sought to make marriages more formal.

The Tametsi decree of the Council of Trent was introduced as the church fought for change. This decree stipulated that any marriage that took place outside the presence of a parish priest or his representative and two witnesses would be null and void. So, if you didn’t get married in a house of God by a priest, the marriage wasn’t legal.

Needless to say, the Irish largely ignored this for several more centuries, and carried on doing their own thing. Even up until the 1900s, a wedding at home was more common than a church wedding but eventually the Church won out and their wedding ceremonies became the norm. Now though, it seems we have gone full circle.

But, while we may have gone back to our roots, there’s nothing medieval about the cost of today’s nuptials. Wedding planners, make-up artists, videographers, lavish receptions and all the other accessories that go hand in hand with the special day don’t come cheap.

When you include bridal showers, overseas stag nights, hen nights, the day-after party and exotic honeymoons, it’s easy to see how the costs can add up and not only for the happy couple. The guests will also find a sizeable hole in their pocket when the dust has settled, and the confetti has been swept up.

It’s not only the money though. The time, effort, energy and stress that goes into planning a modern wedding is considerable. Every couple wants their wedding to be just right, and expectations are high. They’re under enormous pressure to produce the goods and create a magical event and I think we have lost the run of ourselves.

I spoke to a man recently who was married in 1957. His wife-to-be lived in a small house out in the country, and he told me that after the church ceremony, they headed back to her house for the reception.

Families from both sides were invited so there wasn’t a lot of room, but they managed. They were lucky the day was fine so they could go into the small garden. The food was prepared by relatives, and they were served in stages. The first ten guests were seated around the kitchen table to be fed and when they were finished, the next ten sat down and so on until everyone was sorted.

After that, the newlyweds were taken to Cork by taxi where they caught the ferry to Swansea and the train to London for a short honeymoon. That man is in his nineties now but still remembers that day fondly so it can’t have been all that bad.

The parents of a friend of mine got married in 1961 and after the ceremony, they adjourned to a hotel across the road from the church for the reception. It was called the wedding breakfast then and I think that had something to do with the fact that it was the brides first meal as a newly married woman.

Anyway, they were part of the farming community and had busy lives as did many of the guests. After the breakfast they chatted for a while and by lunchtime, they were back working on their farms again. They were more practical back then and they had some good ideas too.

The bride’s wedding dress was much more sensible for a start, just a fancier version of an everyday dress. In fact, women wore outfits that they could wear again as their Sunday best. Some made dresses that could easily be altered so they could be used for other life events.

The guests on the other hand just turned up in their normal everyday clothes. Even as late as the 1930s, a couple getting married were photographed in their wedding clothes, but guests looked like they were off to the market.

The wedding cake was usually, a currant loaf, with the bride getting the first slice. Tipsy cake, a sponge cake soaked in sherry or whatever alcohol was available, was also common and young unmarried maidens would put a sliver of the wedding cake under their pillows to induce intense dreams about their future husband.

In the nineteenth century, a few days before the wedding, the bride’s family would invite the groom over for dinner. There, they would cook a goose in his honour and while waiting for the dinner they would sign contracts and land rights that would bind the two together. Once the goose was cooked, it signified the solidification of the groom’s decision to marry the bride.

There was no turning back after that which is probably where we get the saying ‘his goose is cooked.’ I can’t see us returning to those days, but maybe we could find a reasonable compromise.