During the 18th and 19th Centuries, it was not unusual for weddings to take place on Christmas Day.
In fact, churches held special events to enable weddings to take place and young couples flocked to get married at Christmas. However, this was not for some desire to capture Christmas romance. The real reason was entirely practical.
With so many people working “in service” (as servants) usually Christmas Day and Boxing Day were the only days off they were likely to get off in the whole year (most people worked six days a week and did not get paid for the one day they didn’t work) and if they wanted to get married, the opportunity to do so on Christmas or Boxing Day would have been very welcome .
Christmas Day is a traditional holiday and is not, and never has been a bank holiday in England, Wales or Ireland. Sir John Lubbock first introduced bank holidays. He was a banker and politician who loved his cricket and couldn’t stand the idea of competitors gaining an advantage by trading on days he and his staff went to support or play in their local village matches. He introduced the Bank Holidays Act 1871 which recognised four official bank holidays – Easter Monday, Whit Monday, the first Monday in August and Boxing Day. The same act did make Christmas Day a bank holiday in Scotland.
On my Mother’s side of my family, I have so far found eight Christmas Day weddings including my own maternal Grandmother, Hannah Cownley, who married Frederick Mason on 25 December 1919.
At the time of their wedding, Hannah and Fred were both living in Bermondsey. Hannah was working as a “Factory Hand at a Jam Factory” and Fred was a “Farrier Journeyman” (so someone who looked after horses’ hooves – can’t imagine needing one of those in Bermondsey now can you?)
Hannah was likely to have worked at Hartley’s Jam Factory which employed about 1,500 people in Bermondsey at the beginning of the 20th Century.
Neither Hannah nor Fred will have had much time off and I imagine a Christmas Day wedding would have been appealing to them (the other added incentive would doubtless have been that Hannah was about 7 months pregnant with their eldest daughter, also called Hannah and born on 4 March 1920).
I don’t have any family wedding photos older than the 1950s. But here’s one of my Mum (Hannah and Fred’s youngest daughter) and Dad who got married in late March 1952. In the snow funnily enough …
In case you were wondering, there’s no legal reason why you can’t get married on Christmas Day nowadays. But no one really wants to because they don’t have to I suppose and most Churches are likely to tell you they are too busy (Register offices are not open so no Registrars available for other venues).
Anyway, Happy Christmas to anyone reading this. I shall be back with more stories in 2021.
Linda Swinburne Family History Blog 