Irish Wedding Guide - INTRODUCTION
Once upon a time in Ireland....... a wedding was more than a personal celebration - it was a community event! After the wedding breakfast, people came from miles around to join in the fun. No special invitations were required, but if you arrived too late (like 2 days late!) the casks of whiskey and barrels of porter might already be drunk dry. The musicians were well looked after, and played from noon into the small hours of the morning. If you carried a fiddle or a set of pipes, you might be wined and dined for a week!Matches were the order of the day, and it was very much a case of "pound for pound", "acre for acre" leading to many succesful matches. Love was not a priority - it was an extra bonus if the couple grew to love each other afterwards! The bride's father paid a dowry to the groom, not as a fee to take her off his hands, but to help keep the bridegroom's maiden sisters if they still lived in the homestead.
Wedding outfits did not cost the earth. The man wore a good suit, while the bride wore a good costume which could be worn again as a Sunday best. If the bride wore white, it was with a view to having the dress dyed a practical colour later.
Hotel receptions were unheard of. The wedding breakfast (so called because many weddings were held in the morning) was held in the bride's house. Food and drink were paid for by the bride's father. The traditional fare was boiled or roast bacon. Stew was always popular in Ireland, also Colcannon, a mixture of potato and cabbage. These might be followed by sweetbreads, or cakes - porter cake, simnel cake or bastible cake, named after the large cooking pot called the bastible. A very special treat was sheep teats - said to enhance a man's sexual prowess!
Men didn't wear wedding rings. The bride rarely wore an engagement ring - it was outside most people's budgets and considered an unnecessary expense! A plain wedding band was often the bride's only jewellery. In the west of Ireland, particularly in the Galway region the Claddagh ring acted as the friendship, engagement and wedding ring. The fingers on which the ring was worn indicated whether the woman was engaged, married, or "foot loose and fancy free!"
Because food and drink were the main expenses, there were few limits on the number of guests who might attend. Despite the difficulties, far-flung relatives would travel for days to meet their kindred and stay for a few days or more.
Aah! Them were the days!
As traditions change and wedding etiquette becomes more flexible, there is more room to organise things according to your own desires and requirements. Certain standards and traditions continue, and it's with this in mind that we bring together here, in one site, information and advice from many experts and professional people on every aspect of your wedding, from your wedding stationery to wedding toasts and speeches.