Clova Leighton, Author

I wanted to post something about weddings, because most of my stories end with a wedding or in some, the wedding takes place during the story.  In “Modish Marriage” the couple marry about half way through but we don’t see their wedding ceremony.

In Lady Aurelia’s Adventure, the story ends with my hero Mark and heroine Aurelia getting married in a wartime ceremony in Spain.  In “A Court Lady”, the couple marry during the course of the novel and then fall in love.  The wedding is elaborate because it is set in Napoleon’s court.

However in England during the Regency, weddings among the upper classes were usually small and simple affairs.  Brides did not necessarily wear white and often wore bonnets or scarves rather than veils.  Usually the ceremony took place very quietly with only close family and friends in attendance, though more people might come tot the wedding breakfast afterwards.  In Jane Austen’s novels, weddings are not shown as being very grand; in Emma, Mr Knightley, a good friend of the bride and groom doesn’t even go to the Weston’s wedding.

Towards the later years of the Regency, some very important royal weddings took place and they were grander than those of the upper classes.  However they were not public spectacles in the way that royal weddings are nowadays.   The Princess Charlotte, heiress to the throne, married Prince Leopold of Cobourg at a private ceremony. She was richly dressed and wore a white gown covered with silver lace with a full train.   It was a more elaborate richer version of the usual empire line dresses popular at the time and she wore a wreath of roses in her hair.