Below is a photograph of my grandmother’s wedding, which I believe took place in about 1892, and how startlingly different it all looks, when compared to a modern wedding photo.
Look at the faces for a start, there’s not a single smile in the whole picture, were it not for the wedding dress my grandmother is wearing, it could just as easily have been a group shot taken at a funeral.
This seems to have been the accepted thing to do in those days; I have quite a few family shots from about the same period and it’s exactly the same in every one of them. I wonder if photos were considered, because of their comparative newness then, to be something it was necessary to treat with the deepest respect, any hint of humour being considered a sign of disrespectful levity. That’s purely a guess on my part of course, but one can’t help wondering!
Note too that every woman there, including the bride, but not the obvious matriarch sitting next to her, was wearing a very large hat. Obviously it was still highly fashionable at the time, though I think this is the first time I recall seeing the bride wearing one too, instead of the veil we are so familiar with today. The old lady, who I imagine is the bride’s mother (and so, I suppose is also my great grandmother), is dressed in a much more old fashioned set of clothes, right the way down from the small bonnet, the shawl and the dark gloves on her hands. You’ll see that all the other, younger women were wearing white gloves, more in line with what we are familiar with today. The skirts of the ladies haven’t started their long climb to the minis of the 20th century as yet, and their necklines are distinctly demur.
The men all look very smart don’t they, with their high, tight necklines and white bow ties, except the patriarch on the left who, as far as I can see is wearing a light coloured, ordinary necktie. It looks as if all the younger men are carrying pocket watches — you can just make out the watch-chains spread across the fronts of their waistcoats. The bride-groom appears to be wearing a morning coat, but I can’t make out what the others have on. Both he and the gentleman seated towards the right of the photo are carrying dark coloured leather gloves.
The three younger men towards the left of the photo all look very similar to the groom, so I’m pretty sure they are his brothers (I do know there were four of them in the family), but I could only guess the relationship of the other guests in the picture. I love the ubiquitous little boy lying on the ground in front of the adults, another trait that seems to have been a fashion in old photographs.
As far as I have been able to ascertain, this wedding was a country affair in a little village about 10 miles from Bristol, called Frampton Cotterell, where the Evans family (all eight of them), lived in Cherry House, a place on a large block of land encompassing an acre sized kitchen garden, a quarry, from which the stone for the house was mined and an orchard of two or three acres, full of Victoria plum trees, apples, walnuts and pears.
As a young kid I used to go out there with my mother, late in summer and collect all manner of fruit, which she brought home and bottled, to keep us going throughout the winter. And this was during the war don’t forget, when most things were in short supply, but at least we always had stewed fruit for tea on a Sunday afternoon!
The whole wedding group is very formal isn’t it, by modern standards, and I confess I rather like the effect, though I’m sure there are many who wouldn’t agree! I doubt if typical Australia weddings were ever like this, though I can’t swear to it, having lived here only since 1987. The Australian way of doing things is, and I guess always has been, much more free and easy with rather more informal dress and with massive injections of humour and pleasure. It’s the old story, you make your choice and accept the consequences!
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