Weddings Down the Decades - Sepia Saturday

"Two Together" is Sepia Saturday's April theme  - beginning with Weddings.  Where do I start on this topic, as I have no shortage of images! So focus on fashion and  take a look at styles down seven  decades from 1910 to 1971 - and read the stories surrounding the events. 

With images I have featured before but with many new ones from more recent family contacts. 

1910

An elegant portrait of Sarah Alice Oldham on her wedding to George Butler in Blackpool, Lancashire  and what a showy outfit, magnificently decorated large hat, and a large posy set off by  long broad ribbons.     Sarah came from a family of carters and coal-men. From the collection of my third cousin.  

 

 1918

 

The wedding of Florence Adelaide Mason to Charles Urstadt in New Jersey, USA.  The bride  is wearing  such a distinctive  headdress that I wondered if it had any links to Charles' German background.  And again what a large beribboned  bouquet.

Florence (1898-1963)  was the eleventh  child of John  Mason and Alice Rawcliffe - my great grandmother's sister.  They emigrated, with six children  from Fleetwood,   Lancashire to New York City  in 1888, where they had a further five children, before settling in Jamesburg, Middlesex, New Jersey. I am still in touch with Florence's descendants.  

 

It was my blog that  resulted me in contact with her family  

1919

Beatrice Oldham (sister of Sarah in the first  photograph)  married Jack Clarke in 1919 in Blackpool, Lancashire.   I feel the significance of the date after the First World War is not lost in this photograph where there is a air of informality (shorter skirt, trilby hat etc.), compared with the opulence of Sarah's dress above - and much more natural looking flowers. 

 

The bane of a family researcher's life!   The following two photographs were in the  collection of a Black relative - but nothing at all to identify who the couples were or when the photographs were taken.  

Early 1920s? 

 

  

 

 There were two weddings in the  Black family in 1921 and I feel this image is so similar to the one above with the groom wearing a tribly hat  and his bride in a simple stye of dress with a slightly shorter skirt than was fashionable before the First World wAr.

      Late 1920s 

 

An unmistakable image from the late 1920s for this unidientfied photogaph with the bride wearing a short skirt, a cloche hat  and carrying a huge bouquet.   But I have no idea who they are!  

                                                                             

No question who they are below - members of my mother's Danson family of Lancashire, whose weddings were featured in the local newspaper. The family still have the press cuttings. 

 

 1928

On 4 October 1928  my mother's cousin,  Annie Danson   "gowned in delphinium blue"   married Harry Ditchfield in Poulton le Fylde, Lancashire.   The local press report provided a colourful description of the wedding fashions of the day -  do take time to read it as it gives such an evocative description of the dresses. 

“A member of an old Poulton family,  Miss Annie M.  Danson, daughter of the late Mr and Mrs J. Danson was married in the Parish Church, Poulton. 

The bride, who was given away by her uncle Mr R.. Danson, was gowned in delphinium blue georgette, the sleeveless bodice being plain, while the circular skirt was side slashed and bordered all round with deep silver lace.  Her hat was ruched georgette to tone and she wore silver shoes and hose to tone.  Her bouquet was of pale pink chrysanthemums.  

The reception was held at the home of the bride’s uncle, after which Mr and Mrs Ditchfield went to New Brighton for the honeymoon, the bride travelling in a dress of rose-rust silk, with ecru lace en relief, over which she wore a cost of dove grey, with fox fur trimming and hat of grey felt”.  

 

1929

According to her daughter, Jennie Danson (my great aunt)  by her late twenties decided she had had enough of fulfilling a domestic role for her four brothers,  following the death of their parents.  The  brothers   showed no inclination to marry and set up their own homes.  So  1929 saw Jennie marrying Beadnell (Bill)  Stemp at St. Chad's Church,  Poulton.  This move prompted her brothers all to get married in the following few years! 

 

Another newspaper report gave the over-the-top account of the dress,writing in an effusive  journalistic  style that makes entertaining reading:

"A wedding of much local interest took place in the Poulton Parish Church on Saturday afternoon the bride being Miss Jennie Danson daughter of the late Mr and Mrs James Danson, Bull Street and the bridegroom Mr Beadnell Stemp, son of Mr and Mrs B. Stemp, Jubilee Lane, Marton.

The bride,  who was given away by her brother Mr R. Danson,  was stylishly gowned in French grey georgette, veiling silk to tone.  The bodice which was shaped to the figure was quite plain, with a spray of orange blossoms at the shoulder, while the skirt, which was ankle length, was composed entirely of five picot edged scalloped circular frills, and the long tight sleeves had circular picot edged frilled cuffs in harmony.  Her hat was of georgette to tone with uneven pointed dropping brim, having an eye veil of silver lace and floral mount.  She carried a bouquet of pink carnations with silver ribbon and horsehoe attached.

1934

Another Oldham family wedding, but this time in New Zealand as James William Oldham married Edith Keymer.  I do like the simple classic lines of Edith's dress, but bouquets were growing even longer  - here almost floor-length. 

James'  parents Alfred and Sarah Oldham emigrated to  New Zealand in 1906, where they they  ran a wholesale tobacconists and stationery business on Karangahape Road,  Auckland.  Following James death the family moved to Sydney Australia where his descendants still live today.  

 

1938

 

 

A low key April wedding for my parents John Weston and Kathleen Danson  at St. Chad's Church, Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire. My mother was neasrly 30 in age, so was  that anythiing to do with her choice  of dress rather than the traditional long white gown - I never thought to ask her?  Flower wise, corsages were the order of the day

1941

Wartime simplicity was the look for the wedding of my uncle Bill Danson and his wife Louisa Cerone who I always knew as Auntie Lou, and  who had an Italian  background.

 

1946 

 

Horrors to Happiness.  A wintry austerity Britain in December 1946 when my uncle Charles Weston married his bride Vera.  This was a happy day for the family as Charles had suffered harsh experiences as  a prisoner of war in the Far East.     I made my debut as a little flower girl here - the the only time when I was a bridesmaid. 

 

 

Postwar simplicity for my aunt Peggy Danson and her husband Harold Constable, always known as Con. It was a wartime courtshuip  whilst  Peggy was working on the barrage balloons on the east coast. They emigrated after their wedding to Australia.  I  have two cousins there,  but unfortunately  contact was lost following Peggy and Con's death.  A pity!

 

 

1963 

 A beautiful portrait of the happy couple  - my third cousin Stuart and his wife Jennifer  who married in formal style in 1963.  Stuart represents another blog success story  as that is how we made initial contact  and exchanged stories and photographs, including ones of his Oldham family featured here. 

And Finally

1971

 

The omens were not good on our wedding day on 24th July 1971. It poured down and we have no photographs taken outside; my husband Neil looks a bit shell shocked in this  picture; and with the Tudor monarchs all the rage on film and TV at the time, I chose to wear an Ann Boleyn style headdress - she suffered the fate of being beheaded by Henry VIII.   

A few nights before,  I had this awful dream where I turned up at the church in all my finery to discover it all shut up  and there had been some mix up over the date.  Was this a portent? 

Then the evening  before,  we had a wedding rehearsal at the church.  On the way, with my mother and aunt in Neil's car, we had a blow out on the main A1 road into Edinburgh.  We managed to get a taxi and left Neil to change the tyre.   He arrived late at the church with oil over his cream Arran sweater.  He had to spend the morning of his wedding getting the tyre repaired, so we had a spare one, ahead of us driving  north to the Highlands for our honeymoon.

Wedding day dawned and I was with my mother and bridesmaid fitting my headdress on,  when the phone rang  It was the car hire firm to say in the heavy rain one of their cars had broken down on its way.   It seemed to be left to me to suggest that the one car would have to do a double journey for the wedding party and of course I was late at the church.  We never did get any money back on that missing car.

Still we survived - and will celebrate our 53rd wedding anniversary this year!  The omens were wrong!  

 

 

 

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Sepia Saturday gives an opportunity for genealogy bloggers   to share their family history and memories through photograph

 

Click HERE  to see  more wedding tales from other bloggers.

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