Planning a Wedding,

Medieval Style!


So you're planning to get married, but you long for something more than the traditional white dress deal, something with just a little bit more of a fairy tale ring to it, something totally unlike the five other weddings you've attended this summer...

Well, so were we!

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!

Themes Invitations Locations Ceremonies Flowers and Decorations
Party Favors Food and Drink Clothing Our Plans

 

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.
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.

 

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?
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...

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...
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!

 

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!
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.

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.

 

Our Plans
August 6th, 2000, Matt asked me to be his wife.

February 21, 2004, we announce to our parents that we've set our date to be August 7th, 2004. My mum is rarin' to go, already laying the plans for the bridal shower and researching menus for the reception.

March 6, 2004 - We have been researching sites for the wedding and reception. We wanted to have it in my aunt's backyard garden, but the lack of adequate bathrooms and parking have nixed that idea. We are looking at a semi-local campground, but have to get a hold of the owner who is currently wintering in Florida.
We've got the designs for our clothing all put together. We have sort of a matching scheme going, at least with materials and colors. More about this soon.
We've also picked out the materials to make our invitations, and are trying to decide the wording. We don't know the exact count yet, but we are guesstimating about 50-60 invitations, each one to be individually hand made. We're going to have to make a day of that!

May 13, 2004 - Well, I have just finished making the last of the 75 invitations, and they came out beautiful! Here is what I did...Where to begin?
The story of how Matt and I met had sort of a fairy tale feel to it, so we decided to incorporate that into the invitations. We decided to make the invitations look like little story books. A long day spent shopping around at all the local craft stores (Micheal's, A.C. Moore, Jo Ann's) yielded card stock paper, rubber stamps, ink in green and gold, lots of ribbon in said colors, sealing wax, and a seal with my soon to be initial (C).
A few hours of formatting, messing with fonts and font sizes, adjusting margins, and so on and so forth, finally resulted in being able to fit the little story twice in the right hand column, so that we could get two invitations out of one sheet of card stock. I printed out about 40 sheets (80 invitations) and cut them apart, then folded them over. On the cover, I stamped a castle in gold ink, and the words "Once upon a time...". The inside of the invitation read:

Two souls found each other in the unlikeliest of places, a place far from either of their homelands, a place out of time. Though few words were said, and their names remained unknown to each other, a spark was kindled, and glowed long after they were parted.
A strong spark it was indeed, for though a year and a day they were lost to each other, the spark burst into flame when once more they were united, and they fell in love.
You are invited to be witness to the next chapter of their story: the marriage between Jessica Buczkowski and Matt Cowan, to be attended Saturday, the seventh of August, in the year of Our Lord 2004, at 5:30 p.m. The nuptial ceremony shall be held under the sky on the banks of the pond, and feasting and dancing will follow immediately in the great hall. Please come in your best Medieval finery, or come as yourself and view the rest!
*Ceremony and reception to be held at...

So on and so forth. I listed the mundane site information and the RSVP stuff.
May 21, 2004 - We are all set for the campsite! We went to scout it out this past week, and it's got lots of great possibilities! There is a lovely scenic pond, on the banks of which we'll hold the ceremony. There is an awesome rec hall - huge and cavernous, with good lighting, and a giant fireplace.

I've talked with a local rental company, and made arrangements to order dinner plates, flatware, and goblets - so much nicer than eating with plastic and drinking wine out of paper cups! Wasn't too expensive either.

I've already changed my mind about what kind of dress I want to make for myself, and with just two and half months to go, I better got on the ball! Matt and I were originally going to wear outfits of white and sage green, and for a while, I was really excited with the design I created for my gown...but, here I am, changing my mind. I want more color! Something richer looking! Some women settle with being princess for a day - I want to be queen! So that's back to the drawing board...

 

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