Peculiar Weddings.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 432, 28 December 1889, Page 3

Peculiar Weddings.

It is our" fiiifi belief "that' mo&s peculiar incidents' take £lace' at weddings than at any other public ceremony; religious or civil. '" We have" known a good many odd things happen at weddings, in the course of several years' experience as a town and country parson, and we think a few of them may be worth chronicling for the amusement of the British public. Wo may fairly say that we were introduced to weddings en masse. Our first curacy was at the old parish church of a largo northern manufacturing town, where. ib was no unusual thing to have thirty or forty sets of banns to read out on a Sunday morning, and where the number of weddings was in proportion. We are afraid to ' say how. many- happy couples we united in the first week of our ministerial experiences. We arrived at our curacy on a Monday afternoon, and found on the Tuesday morning ten weddings awaiting us. On our innocently remarking to the clerk that they would take up some time to perform, he informed us, with a sort of pity at our ignorance of how things were done, that we iveremisfcakenonthafcpoinfc. " You see, we marries them all at once"— a custom to which we soon got used. On one Christmas Pay morning there were no fewer than seventeen weddings fixed for the name hour, half-past nine. As there was a service at half-past ten, it was not easy to get through the work even though the happy pairs were " married all together." Luckily, our chancel was a large one, so ranging the wedding parties in a huge circle, around us, wo stood in the centre, addressing to the congregation at large the exhortations suitable to all alike ; and going the round of the circle, from pair to pair, with the questions which have to bo put individually. Our old parish, like most other old town parishes, is now divided into ten, and weddings en masse are things of the past. We once took a wedding at which the only attendant, besides the groomsman and bridesmaid, was a stout, determined-looking elderly female, w.ho did not come up with the wedding party to the altar rails, but seated herself in one of the choir stalls not far off. We observed that both bride and bridegroom looked at her with very disquieted glances. Once or twice we noticed that the elderly female seemed about to make a move, especially at that pait of the service when possible opponents are requested to " speak, or else hereafter for ever hold their peace." When the service was over, we inquired of the good dame why she had como to the wedding. " I'm the girl's mother," was the reply, "and I came to prevent tho business." We naturally asked why she hadn't " prevented the businoss ;" and we found that the thought had struck her at the last moment chat they '• might do worse than get married, after all." We have often since thought of what must have been theagitated feelings of that bride and bridegroom until the irrevocable words were said over them. A terrible incident happened at another wedding, that of a couple both of middle age. There was grating just in front of ! the altar rails, which led down to the pipes which heated the building. In his agitation in putting the ring on the finger of his bride, the unfortunate bridegroom let it go and it rolled down the grating. The clerk descended and hunted ior some time. The ring, however, could not be found. The poor bride shed copious teais, and the bridegroom gallantly stanched them as well as he could with a large red-and-grsen handkerchief, murmuring soothingly, " There, don't 'cc cry — don't 'cc cry," in the endearing tone which is often used to a baby. VVe are sure wo sympathised ; but our sympathy was hardly sufficient to control our risible propensities. A ring had to be borrowed from one of the officials; and the bride's tears were dried at last. Marrying a couple one or both of whom are deaf is a funny experience. We remember a bridegroom who was perfectly deaf, and could not catch the import of a single word uttered in our loudest tones. Could he read ? we wondered ; and to find out we placed the book before him. Yes, he could ; and began '* I, M., take thee N., to my wedded wife." We tried, but in vain, to make him understand that he must substitute his own namo for M., and his bride's for N. He smiled a smile of incomprehension ; and we had to leave him to describe himself as"M." The words •* ordinance " and " plight " were to much for him— he shook his head, and left them out altogether. We wondered then, and we have occasionally wondered since, how the courtship of that worthy couple had gone on. Ib must certainly have been an affaire dv ccetir, nob of the mere external senses. A couplo once presented themselves who had nob given any previous notice of their intention to be married. Tho bridegroom, when he was asked why he had not done so, replied, " Because I want to be married by liconce." "Then," wo said, "we suppose you have brought the licence with you?" Bub we found, from his answer, that he imagined a licence was a document which a clergyman could make out at any moment on a sheet of paper. When he had grasped the idea of what marriage by licence really was, and that, consequently, he could not be married there ' and then, the state of mind into which he and the rest of the party were thrown may be better imagined than described. We felt very sorry for them ; but of course we could not holp it. It was amusing to hear the ejaculations of the different members of the party. "Oh dear, what are we to do ?" sobbed the bride. " Well, I have been made a fool of," said the bridegroom. " Law is law— yes, law is law, and it can't be helped," was the philosophical reflection of the bride's father. They were married shortly afterwards, but nob by licence. Talking aboub marriage licences, it is curious what vague ideas many persons have about them — not only those in the humble station of life to which the couple just mentioned belonged. Twice we have been stopped in the streets, once in a midland factory town, and once in a cathedral town in the south, by respectably dressed youthful couples, and asked if we were a " parson ;" and on receiving an answer in the affirmative, further asked whether we t would make out a licence and marry them j as soon as possible. Once, also, we met with an equally curious mistake aboub banns. After reading for the first, time the banns of a young labourer ! and a young woman whose engagement was unknown to us, we congratulated the parents of the young lady, when we next called, on their daughter's matrimonial pi ospocts. " Ohj" fsaid the mother, " she, doesn't want' to marry him : but 1 'epose she must' now, 'cause the banns are put up." And we actually found that the young man had " put up" the 1 banns entirely on his own account, and had persuaded the: girl and her- parents that now' he -could legally claim her .as ' his > wife. Explanations fol-, lowed and the banns were nob published again.' ' ' '* ' We remember a wedding which liad'sorae very peculiar circumstances attending it. Ail tho .legal conditions were complied with; and yet there was an air of secrecy and mystery about tho whole business. At tor

'o'clock the ! bride* arrived, 1 in brdiriary^dress, ?^ c .by hersejlf ; atjtwenty minutes.pastjtenAtheE^ bridegroom appeared; c6min"g^from' ji quiw J a^|^ {different direction, 'also by himself/ A* few^ I '/? hurried words wereexchanged between them". ** 'in the vestry/ ThecUJrk and sexton*, who both % Happened to be about, were rfequested'tb'acb/ -; as witnesses. When tlie service was overy • J the bridegroom left the church alohe*by~''tUc~ - west door.' Some' twenty minute's after- ,; w ards the bride departed, by another dooV and went off in, another direction. '* We ; never gained any clue «s to the motives for all this secrecy j bub "where there's &]- mystery there's always a history.*' We wonder what their history was. ' ' Only a few'months ago we had ah odd iti^ stance of the way in which a witness may be procured. The happy pair were driven' , to the church in a local fly, the driver df which appeared subsequently 1 as "bestf man." He told us affcerwarde thafc;he Had no notion when he reached the church that he was to acb in that capacity ; but that, when they alighted, the bridegroom told him that to act as " his man" was " part of the job ;" and so he accommodated' himself to circumstances. t Let us conclude this series of wedding re : collections by mentioning what we consider a very pretty custom which is 1 observed in some 1 parts of Kent and other southern counties. An arch is constructed by the villagers at the churchyard gate, on which* are suspended the implements of the handicraft to which the bridegroom belongs. A carpenter has his saw and plane and footrule ; a black-smith his hammer and pinchers and horseshoes ; and so forth; We have seen these sometimes combined in a very tasteful manner. There yet dwells in our memory the case of a bridegroom who had no particular occupation but that of frequenting the public-houee,and in his case some cynical friends stood holding' a huge basin of beer outside the churchyard gates. — Chambers's Journal.