Elizabethan Marriages and Weddings

Just as today a woman's wedding was one of the most important days of her life. Elizabethan Women were subservient to men. Marriages were frequently arranged so that both families involved would benefit.

Elizabethan women were expected to bring a dowry to the marriage. After marriage Elizabethan women were expected to run the households and provide children.

Arrangements for Elizabethan weddings would have been with the local church. There were no Registry Office marriages. The same procedure still applies to Church marriages in England today. Wedding invitations were not issued. If there was an Elizabethan wedding then people would just attend. The Elizabethan Wedding custom dictated that the couple's intention to marry had to be announced in the church three times on three consecutive Sundays.

Should a couple need to marry in haste an alternative, faster, route to legalising a marriage required a Marriage Bond which acted as a contract, security and proof to a Bishop that the issue of a Marriage Licence was lawful. Elizabethan wedding customs and contracts would have required that his father would have had to agree to the marriage.

The Bride and Groom would be attended by their family and close friends. Once at the church the ceremony would be a solemn one. When the marriage ceremony was over the wedding procession would return to their homes.

It was an Elizabethan Wedding custom to celebrate the marriage with a wedding feast. Large families were the norm as the mortality rate for children and babies was so high.

During the Elizabethan era of history women were very much 'second class citizens'. Elizabethan marriages were sometimes arranged immediately following a babies birth via a formal betrothal.

With parental permission it was legal for boys to marry at 14 and girls at 12 although it was not usual for marriages at such young ages. The bride did not wear a white wedding dress, this was a later tradition. Velvet, Satins and Corduroy were costly and therefore worn by the nobility. The wedding garments belonging to the majority of brides were generally made from Flax, Cotton and wool. The bride would wear flowers in her hair and they would also adorn her gown.

The Bridegroom wore his best clothes which consisted of a doublet, breeches, hose, box pleated neck ruff and a cod piece. Elizabethan men usually wore a short shift as an undergarment. Colours came in a variety of different shades: red, blue, greens, yellow, white, grey, black, orange and tan.