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Irish wedding traditions

By
Edythe Preet
,
Irish America Magazine Feature Writer

Published Wednesday, May 27, 2009, 12:41 PM
Updated Thursday, July 23, 2009, 5:23 PM

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Irish wedding traditions | IrishCentral




Read more: Weddings, Culture and Lifestyle, Marriage, Relationships, Ireland, Dublin, James Joyce, Leopold Bloom, Beverages, Food and Cooking
The Irish boys and the Italian girls: Ambrose Burns, George Burns, Edythe Musacchio and Matilda Musacchio. George and Edythe are the writer's parents, who married On June 16, 1937.

IrishCentral's guide to the perfect Celtic wedding: Click here

Irish wedding tips and traditions: Click here

Traditional Irish wedding cake recipe: Click here

Just when I think I have my dad all figured out, a new snippet of info comes to light, and June always finds me thinking more about him than usual. It’s Father’s Day month, his birthday was the 3rd, and my parents were married on June 16th, now celebrated globally as Bloomsday, the day Leopold Bloom wandered through Dublin in Ulysses by James Joyce, Dad’s favorite author.

June is also the prime month for weddings, and Dad was a wedding photographer. He used to say he’d like to write a book about his wedding adventures titled I Shot the Bride with a 4-5, meaning his trusty 4x5 press camera.

Almost immediately on beginning the research for this article on Irish wedding traditions, I chanced upon some eye-opening Irish marriage advice: “Monday for health, Tuesday for wealth, Wednesday the best day of all, Thursday for losses, Friday for crosses, and Saturday no day at all.” Another Dad revelation! For the year my parents were married, June 16, occurred on a Wednesday, and why they chose a midweek nuptial instead of the usual Saturday had always mystified me.

Finding a life partner to love and cherish, for richer or poorer, for better or worse, in sickness and in health is certainly the best reason to marry. It appears that my father was taking no chances and picked an auspicious Irish traditional day to tie the knot.

For centuries, most Irish marriages were arranged to benefit the families involved with increased land holdings, power or wealth. A daughter who was not pretty could be made beautiful with a handsome dowry. Love came later, if at all.   

Producing healthy offspring was what brought the sexes together. In pre-Christian times, people believed that breeding healthy children was the only way to persuade nature to provide abundant crops and wells that would not run dry. Sterility was a social disgrace and an economic tragedy, and testing a prospective partner’s fertility by trial marriage or bed sharing (“bundling”) was widely accepted.

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