by Fred Moleck
June Weddings: A Thing of the Past
Last Friday on NBC’s Today morning show, a couple celebrating their tenth wedding anniversary were guests on the program.
Eleven years ago, the “groom” announced nationally that he was in search of a spouse. They would be married shortly after their introduction: sight unseen, no marriage prep, no bridal showers, no meeting with the parish musician.
Ten years later, they have been happy with each other and are happily proud of their three children. One decade is a pretty good track record, and they showed every indication that there will be several more decades.
Looking back on my wedding record—not mine personally, but those wedding ceremonies for which I provided the music ministry—there haven’t been many diversions from the usual procedures.
Here are some constants:
Everyone within two degrees of separation of the happy couple must have a visible role in the ceremony—e.g., the bride’s college roommate does the first reading from Corinthians. It doesn’t matter that she has never read in public before or that English is not her first language.
There must be a place for the three- and four-year-olds in the procession. (That’s not such a bad thing, because they usually upstage the bride and her fanfares.)
The longer the planning period, it is in direct proportion to the major battles that will be waged.
And on . . . and on . . . and on.
What is pretty much a forgotten practice is the June wedding. It was every organist’s high-roller “buck” period when the stipends would be rolling in—well, not exactly “rolling,” considering the amount of dollars they represented.
Most weddings took place in June or right after Christmas. (Money could be saved by using the poinsettias in the church.)
My organ teacher when I was in high school (over fifty years ago) usually received a pair of cufflinks similar to what groomsmen received. Fifty years ago, I received $10.00 for each wedding, which was considered really good.
(Saturday, September 18, 2003, I met the actual bride of fifty-two years ago at a liturgical study day that I conducted in the Diocese of Greensburg. She thought $10.00 was still too high!)
I always wondered, Why June?
There is one theory that it had to do with personal hygiene practices in medieval wedlock. Frequent bathing was considered bad for you.
May was a pretty good time to wash the personal wintry gunk off one’s body that would accumulate in the thatch-covered houses where the villagers lived.
It wasn’t much better in the castles on the hill. There was no need for shower gels or deodorant. They didn’t know any better.
Also, the showers of March and April had softened the soil to permit plowing and planting. Brute activity with sweat on the brow and elsewhere was the norm in the 1300s.
So a May bath would be just peachy. It would clear the air for a while—just the right time to get married, when folks were at least approachable if not odor free.
That bit of folk ritual history is something I’ve carried around for maybe thirty years.
Now there’s no reason for me to smile knowingly when the June 10 wedding bridal party comes barreling into the church for the rehearsal on the night before.
If anything, they smell of beer and/or cannabis and they are joyful—blissful, to be sure—and to think it all started with a postwinter bath and a warm day in June.
You can reach Fred Moleck via email at fmoleck@comcast.net