Medieval Style!
Matt and I met at the Great Lakes Medieval Faire, and on August 6th, 2000, he proposed there. Naturally, we've planned on a Medieval wedding from the start. Well, three and a half years later, we are finally starting to make plans! That's us in the picture above!
This page is based on our own wedding plans, the weddings of our friends, and other loose ideas that bounce around in my head (no cracks about empty spaces please). Most of the ideas I am presenting are based on planning a low-budget wedding. Your special day doesn't have to cost thousands of dollars to be beautiful and memorable. If you have any ideas you'd like to share, or anectdotes about how you planned your own medieval wedding, send me an e-mail and I'll include them on this page if I can!
Coming soon: More ideas for Themes, Invitations, Locations, Ceremonies, Flowers and Decorations, Party Favors, Food and Drink, and Clothing!
Choosing a Theme for your Medieval Wedding
Probably the best way to start planning a Medieval wedding is to pick a theme. This might sound silly because, yes, medieval is a theme, but a very general one. For example, we are still bouncing around between Celtic Medieval, true period medieval, and fantasy medieval. Beyond those, you might want to go with medieval royalty, medieval peasantry, Christian medieval, Pagan medieval, [insert nationality of your preference] medieval...as you can see, there are quite a few possibilities! Think about your other interests and how they can be incorporated.
Choosing a theme helps you to really get started with your planning, and makes decisions regarding just about everything easier. Our friend Dani just got married this past fall, and her wedding was beautiful! She had an Autumn Harvest theme; her flowers were fall wildflowers and her decorations were in autumn tones. The bride's gown was gold-hued, and the bridemaids wore burgundy.
Creative Invitations
You can have lots of fun with invitations, and they don't have to cost a whole lot. Start with the who, what, where, and when, and then go from there!
Dani made her own invitations. They were medieval-styled and hardly cost her a thing. She chose a font on her computer that looked like medieval calligraphy, and typed up the invitation, complete with "olde" language and spellings. In order to let her guests know that she was planning a medieval theme, she included the message "Come decked out in your medieval best, or come as yourself and view the rest!". She printed the page, and then rolled it up into a scroll and tied it with a red ribbon. Viola! Instant medieval wedding invitation!
This is a great, inexpensive way to create your own invitations, with lots of options for customization. You could use parchment paper for a really antique look, or other interesting specialty papers that can be found in office and stationery stores. If you really want to go all out, buy some wooden dowels and cut them so that they are just slightly longer than the width of your paper. Paint or stain them, or leave them plain if you wish. Glue one to each end of your printed scroll. Once the glue is dry, roll the dowels towards each other so that they meet in the middle, and tie with a ribbon. They will probably have to be hand-delivered though. I'll try to have some pictures of this up soon!
You can get an interesting effect with tea-dying. Just brew some really strong hot tea. Pour the tea into a shallow pan and lay the paper, one piece at a time, in the tea and let it soak for a minute. Carefully (and you probably will tear a few) lift the paper out and lay it on a screen to dry. You might be able to get a stronger color with coffee instead of tea, but I've never tried that. You could try dripping a few drops of coffee onto the tea dyed paper for a mottled, marbled effect. Once it dries, it will have a dry, crisp feel to it. This done, print up your invitations! Make sure you use a dark ink so the words will show up well.
Matt and I really like the scroll idea, but many of our relatives live pretty far away, and scrolls aren't convenient to mail. We are thinking of making our own hand-stamped invitations. Craft stores like Jo Ann's, Micheal's, and AC Moore have lots of supplies for making your own custom cards. Check out Our Plans to see more on what we plan to do!
More soon!
Where to have the Ceremony and Reception
If you've having a medieval wedding, you'd probably like to have a medieval setting too. Most medieval faires offer wedding packages of varying costs with varying ammenities. That's what we originally planned to do. However, we found the wedding packages at our home faire a little more expensive than we can afford, and...I don't know. We just wanted a more personal setting. Though the Great Lakes Medieval Faire's wedding packages offer a lot, I found them sort of limited for what we wanted.
Many people prefer a church wedding, but that still leaves the question of where to have the reception (unless the church's basement rec hall is fine for you.) I think the best option for a medieval party is someplace in the great outdoors. Houses were typically small in medieval times, so parties and festivals were held outside. Some possible locations, with pros and cons:
Someone in your family have a big yard? Why not have your reception there?
No matter where you live, there's a good chance that there is a campground not too far away. There are so many good points, I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner while making my plans...
Ceremonies
Nothing here yet, but hang on, it's coming!
Flowers: Beyond Tea Roses, Decorations: More than Crepe Paper and Balloons
Not that there's anything wrong with tea roses or crepe paper, mind you...But neither is exactly medieval. And well, I personally think crepe paper and balloons are tacky for a wedding. Not to offend any crepe-paper fans out there, but there are so many more tasteful options that don't have to necessarily cost much more!
Having your wedding outdoors, especially in a garden, can cut down your floral costs by quite a bit. Of course, you'll have to come up with bouquets and boutineers (does anyone know how to spell that?), but you'll save big on decorative floral arangements.
Creative Wedding Favors
The origins of wedding favors are quite funny. In medieval times, everyone would get roaring drunk (because alcohol was all they had to drink besides water then) and accompany the new bride and groom to their home, into the very bedchamber, and cheer on the consummation of the marriage! It was considered good luck to have something of the bride's, and in their drunkenness, the guests would tear at her clothes to get a scrap of her good-luck gown (and probably to help her get her clothes off more quickly!) After a while, savvy brides would be ready for this, and throw small tokens to the crowd to appease them (and escape with her clothing intact).
Hence, the origins of party favors. There are tons of ways to make your own party favors and save yourself from being torn to pieces by your drunken guests! (just kidding) We had so many different ideas that we had a hard time deciding what to do. I do know that we definitely are going with something more original than candied almonds wrapped in tulle!
One of the first ideas I had was to make fortune cookies, with the fortunes reading our names and the wedding date, or a lovey-dovey fortune with the date as the lucky numbers. I have a recipe, which I'll put here very soon. A very cute idea I think, but not too medieval-ish.
Our friend Dani gave wine glasses as favors. Rather than serve the wine in plastic cups, she bought sets of wine glasses from a dollar store and filled them with chocolate kisses. They were functional, pretty, and rather than fill her own cubbords with 60 wine glasses, she had a unique gift for all of her guests.
Eat, Drink, and be Merry!
A big part of planning your menu is deciding what time of day you'll be having the reception. If you get married in the morning, serve brunch or lunch. If you plan for early afternoon, you could have a cake reception, i.e. you eat the cake, and maybe some other small deserts or hor d'oerves. Should your reception fall in late afternoon or early evening, a dinner is in order (don't want to starve the guests). If you're a night owl and have yur wedding in the evening, you could get away with a cocktail reception. Of course, none of these are rules - you can serve as little or as much food as you want, no matter what time of day. They're just some practical suggestions.
We aren't too sure about we want to serve yet. We're planning to have our outdoor wedding in August, but haven't decided what time of day yet. We don't want to serve anything too heavy because of the heat. In keeping with the medieval theme, we plan to serve a large variety of breads and cheeses. We were also thinking about having bowls and baskets full of fresh fruits and vegetables.
Wine is definitely also on our menu - 800 years ago when there was no refrigeration, alchohol was one of the few foods (does it count as food?) that didn't go bad, so therefor was consumed in abundance. Of course, if you plan to have a dry wedding, or just want to include minors in the toast, sparkling grape or apple juice is the ideal alternative. Every year, Matt's family makes good use of the sour apple tree in his front yard by stockpiling homemade cider, so there will be plenty of that to go around. More soon!
What to Wear?
A word about medieval wedding clothing...
Today, we hear bridal gown and immediately picture it in white. However, white wedding attire wasn't popular until Marie Antoinette wore it in the 1700's. In medieval times, dyes, especially primary blues and reds, were very difficult to make, and therefor fabric in these colors would be very expensive. A medieval bride (and groom) would wear the most expensive thing she could afford, and that would entail more brilliantly colored clothing.
An interesting todbit I just read in Renaissance Magazine - While jewel tones, especially red and blue, were popular for wedding attire among the Celtic people, green was not. It was actually considered quite unlucky, the reason being that green hides grass stains so well. Isn't that a good thing, you might ask? Certainly, unless that green gown was "hiding evidence of untoward premarital trysts", if you get my meaning.
Here are some possible themes I want to elaborate on in the future: Fairy/Fantasy, Gothic, Celtic, and some more when I think of them.
Pros: You probably won't have to pay any rental fees for the site itself (unless your relatives are real misers). It's a great way to make a memory - every time you visit, you'll be reminded of your happy day!
Cons: Unfortunately, there's a few. Unless your relatives are obsessive landscapers, you'll probably have to hire a gardener to do any necessary improvements. Most households are not equipped with outdoor furniture for a crowd, so you'll probably have to rent tables and chairs, not to mention tents in case of inclement weather. There probably won't be a whole heck of a lot of parking available. Also, bathrooms will be in short order, especially if your hosts don't want all those people tramping through their house, peeking in their medicine cabinets...
Pros: Where to start? I guess with two important but often overlooked points - bathrooms and parking. A campsite is likely to have plenty of both. Most campsites will no doubt have some scenic locations for the ceremony and/or reception. Many campsites are set up to accommodate large groups, so you can probably find pavillions with picnic tables at most of them, taking care of the seating. There will be playgrounds to keep the little ones occupied. Some campsites have rec halls, which would come in handy should it rain. Having the wedding at a campsite could save your out of town friends and relatives a lot of trouble - if they elect to stay at the campsite, they wouldn't have the stress of finding their way around an unknown town.
Cons: A campsite is a public place (at least concerning the campers) so you will most likely have some unknown guests, or at last an audience. Some campsites are dry, so if you are planning on serving alcohol, this could be a problem. The largest problem I can think of is the limited source of electricity, especially if you need to power to keep food hot or cold. Plan on bringing a lot of extension cords.
Ok, so what if you have severe pollen allergies, or are getting married in the unfriendly depths of winter? An outdoor wedding is probably out the door then. There are lots of other options though, which I touch on soon!
What's a medieval wedding without a feast? Don't worry, I am sure you're guests won't be turing up just for the food.