A Royal English wedding planning

The 26 December 1251 a massive royal wedding took place in the city of York. Margaret, the daughter of Henry III, was wed to Alexander III of Scots.


Alexander King of Scots at his coronation in 1249

 I medieval times the planning probably was a greater challenge than today. You did not have the same means of communication, transportation and preservation of the food. Because a wedding was a way of showing of your wealth and power in the high societies the feast were comprehensive events. We can get a clue as to how extensive by looking at Margaret and Alexander's wedding.

From the records it appears that the planning of the feast began in the summer.

July: Beasts were bought from the fairs and pastured until they were to be slaughtered just before the wedding. An order was also given to slaughter and salt 300 red and fallow deer.

August: Early August 100 wine tuns or 25,000 gallons of wine was brought in.

October: In the northern counties the sheriffs were told to supply hens (7000), game birds, rabbits, hares, pigs and boars (70). Later a 100 more boars were added.

November: Another 1000 roe fallow and red deer was ordered. You can probably imagine that with all that meat they would need a LOT of bread for the guest. It was ordered from the local bakers in the insane amount of 68,500 for £7000 ! To be able to cook all the meals a great many charcoal was needed and the wood was collected from the forests of Glatres and Langwith. At the end of the month such delicacies as sugar, almonds and rice were bought.



Margaret of England

 December: The fish was ordered: 60.000 salted herring, 1000 greenfish, 10.000 haddocks and 500 conger eels. The fresh-water fish came from the King's stew pond and was to be kept alive until they day to keep them fresh.



There are a couple of cookbooks preserved mostly from early 14 century and onwards, but with evidence that the recipes are far older. Recipes weren't as precise as today, there wasn't much mention of quantity, but from the big variation in products you can guess that they probably had a wide range of meals on the menu during the days of this royal and massive wedding.

Source: Food and feast in medieval England, by P.W.Hammond, 1995

A new Medieval Bride network

I have just made a new network and forum as an extention of the medieval bride blog. It's meant for all of you who likes to read this blog and are planning your own weddings. You're very welcome to join and under the forum My Wedding Plan, you can start your own topic where you can post pictures and share stories. :)

http://medievalbride.wall.fm/

It's still new to me and I have never been the admin of a network before, so there's still a lot to be done in there. I will love any ideas and I hope to see you there all you future Medieval Brides.

A medieval wedding

Look at these stunning photos of a medieval wedding by Thomas F. Berger from Flickr:

I love the attention to details in this handfasting photo. The groom has a magníficent sword, chainmail and bracers along with his royal blue tabard. The golden handfasting cord that binds the couple together is also very reagal.

The bride is probably a bit more on the romantic than the medieval side although the shape of the dress is very celtic medieval. The fact that it's white isn't so important because look how beautiful she is, that soft floating fabric combined with the delicate lace and the baby's breath flowers in the buquet and hair!  

The knightly prince embraces his princess. I think this is why a lot of couples likes this theme so much. It's all about fairy tales and old-old fashion love. Notice her loose hair with the simple ribbon and flowers.

The officiant looks great and see how shiny the shield is. I reckon this was a great wedding. It's just a pity that the photografer hasn't posted more from the day. The rose buquet is lovely too, I should really have liked to be a guest at that wedding.

To Be or Not to Be Authentic

So this blog is about how to make your wedding as medieval as possible. BUT as with most theme weddings, the theme can be seen in elements of the wedding rather than the entire setup. This blog is meant to inspire you to have some great medieval details to complement your own personal details that may or may not have anything to do with the Middle Ages.



A Gothic medieval - mix wedding

If you have chosen a medieval wedding, it's most likely that you somehow have an interest in history, SCA, role-playing or fairy tales. This will also often resolve in mixed themes like medieval-fairy wedding or knight - gothic wedding. These combinations can make it difficult to be truly authentic, but most brides will rather have a personal wedding then completely authentic one -  myself included.

My own wedding will probably be one of the more thorough theme parties. There isn't much modern tradition about our wedding and I won't be compromising with the color of the dress, the food or the ceremony. But still we want modern music and we will send out written invitations rather than walk door to door and deliver a verbal invite like they would have done in the Middle Ages.
Obviously it's important to know what you want to prioritize. Few brides would want to wear another color than white, but it is possible to combine the medieval and the modern, like with this dress from Temptations By Design 's medieval collection:

You will have to compromise. It might be hard to find a proper location for example. This Danish couple had their wedding at Horsens' medieval festival. A lot of the wedding was amazingly authentic, like their stunning clothing, the ceremony and they even had a parade through the city - a very medieval tradition. But the reception was held in some pretty rooms that had more of a 18th century look.

I have also seen some really cool medieval weddings that had this fairy tale - medieval theme, with cute little bride's maids with colorful wings, which is obviously not authentic ;-)
It takes a lot of work to make a wedding authentic medieval style, and truth is you can only get so close to they way they did it.
In the end it's all about finding your own style. :)

- The Medieval Bride

Medieval wedding message board

http://www.midnightgarden.com/wedding/board/ is a fantastic initiative for us in-need-of-medieval-wedding-inpiration-brides. It's a message board for all who are getting married with a medieval / renaissance theme but alas only few brides use it these days. I doubt that the world lack medieval brides but none the less the website needs the new generation of brides in there. I have just registered (under the name Sunspirit) and will be posting some of my own wedding stuff there but, when permittet, I will also post the best ideas from the message board on my blog.
So this is a cry-out to all of you who are planning af medieval wedding: Join so we can all benefit from each other's ideas. :-)

The Medieval Bride

Our location - the Medieval Centre on Nykoebing Falster

We are so fortunate to have found a truly perfect location for the party and the ceremony. It is a medieval restaurant that is a part of a reconstructed medieval town in Denmark. The place is a museum during the day where kids and adults can see knight's tournaments or fire the catapults and see how the everyday life was in the 13th century. 

The high table at the end of the room in the Golden Swann


The restaurant itself serves only food from the era and they are very attentive to the authentic details. There are no electric lights in the rooms. They are entirely lit up by candlelight. The staff is dressed in historic clothing and all guests will eat with only a spoon and a knife, because forks weren't in use just yet.
The rooms look like a small medieval inn with wooden interior and have some beautiful paintings on the walls. The restaurant is called the Golden Swann and is the home of the local knight sir Henrik Svane.
I hope to find similar places all over the world and recommend them to you. :)

In the end I just wanted to show you some pictures from their website: http://middelaldercentret.dk/Engelsk/welcome.html

The tournament field

How to get started

When you start planning a wedding with at theme it is always a good idea to establish which items, ideology and traditions would help make the theme realistic.
Medieval times was a long period and the fashion of both clothing and food differs depending on where in Europe you were and wheather it was the early og late medieval. Our wedding is based on the scandinavien and partly english customs early on in the period.


Next it would be prudent to chose which layer of society you want to portray in the decorations. There is a great differens in the wedding dress if you are a rich farmer's daughter or a princess. It can be fun to exploit the theme to make a glorious royal medieval party, with a big silken dress with bell-sleeves, and vagon drawn by white horses. The groom can be a knight in shining armour and the table may be set with huge iron chandalirs and beautiful coloured drinking glasses. You can have a huge cake with gold and pearls.


 We have chosen the alternative a wedding amongst the less rich nobility that are more peasents than warriors. For us this means a less pompous decor, with more nature involved. The room will be decorated with whatever can be found in the forrest at that time of year. The plates and cups are made of unpainted clay and the room will be lit up only from many small candles. The tables won't have tableclothes on them so you can see that they are made of massive wood and people will be seated on long benches in stead of chairs.


When you have made following decisions, you are ready to throw yourself at the details:
1. When in the medieval times are you? (The later the greater is the posibility to be pompous)
2. Where in Europe or the world are you?
3. Are you kings and queens / knight and maiden /nobility / peasants?