“The Wedding Morning”, by John Henry Frederick Bacon, 1892.
Snippets 202. Everyone hopes their wedding day will be the perfect occasion, but what happens when something goes wrong? For today’s “snippet”, let’s take a look at two newspaper reports of wedding-related incidents, both from the late 19th Century. The first is from South Wales Echo, 17th October 1889:
It was surely one of the oddest of mishaps at a wedding which is reported from Chislehurst. It is stated that the wedding party had returned from church, where everything had gone smoothly, as things matrimonial ought, when it was discovered that the clergyman had omitted the words, “With this ring I thee wed, with all my worldly goods I thee endow.” The bride-groom had, in consequence, not undertaken the most serious of his obligations, and the bride was without her wedding ring. It was in the middle of the wedding breakfast the omission was called to mind, and the parties hurried back to church, and were practically twice married in one day – that is to say, if the first rite really was a marriage, which may be a moot point.
On 16th August 1894, Lincolnshire Echo carried a report of another wedding calamity:
A singular mishap occurred at a wedding at Churchgate-street Chapel, Bury St. Edmunds, on Tuesday. The bridegroom was Mr. Alfred Powell, of London, and the bride Miss Jane Lousia Hammond, of Bury. The wedding ceremony had been completed and the “Wedding March” played, when it was discovered that neither the Registrar nor his Deputy had been present, no notice having been given to them of the event. The Registrar was at once fetched, and the part of the service known the “legal declaration” had to be repeated.
“The Wedding Morning”, by John Henry Frederick Bacon, 1892.
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