Wartime Green Weddings
Jan 28th, 2008 by Jenny
As Katie recently pointed out, the weddings of yester-year were much greener… without even trying to.
I wrote and asked my Gran about what weddings were like in the war years. Her reply was really interesting, and actually quite humbling.
It made me realise how amazingly easy it is to organise a wedding now (greenly or otherwise!), and has really put the ‘wedding stress’ we all think we suffer into perspective. Here is what my Gran remembers:
“There were rather “greener” weddings in the war time years. We had to re-use as much as possible, make as much as we could, travel not at all and avoid waste. If this sounds dull, it was, but it never diminished our excitement when an engagement was announced and we could all help towards making the wedding day very special.
“Wedding receptions would in those days be held in a nearby hall to avoid using precious fuel for trains and buses. (Petrol was severely rationed to civilians as it could not be spared from fighting the war).
The food served would have been saved bit by bit from the weekly rations. Considered acceptable in those days would have been a menu of, say, salad accompanied by Spam which came to us, courtesy of our very gallant allies, the Canadians and Americans, the bringing of which seriously cost lives crossing the Atlantic.
“As a result of the government’s Dig for Victory campaign when we all turned our lawns into vegetable plots, the salads were either home grown or grown at a nearby market garden. Shopping was never wrapped. We saved our own wrapping paper which could not be replaced and carried our own shopping bags throughout the six years.
“Wedding cakes were usually made at home from ingredients horded secretly for months and added to by friends and neighbours when the wedding was imminent. Some extremely professional tiered cakes were produced and many new talents were discovered.
“There would be a honeymoon if the bridegroom’s leave permitted. The journey would be short, no more than thirty miles by train, the bride and groom taking their ration books with them.
“Dresses for bride and bridesmaids were mostly re-used by borrowing from sisters, cousins and girlfriends and making a few alterations. To buy new, even if obtainable, would have used too many clothing coupons, leaving nothing for necessities.
Most bridegrooms were married in uniform, thereby saving material and tailoring. There were sometimes ways of getting round the clothing coupons. Silk, retrieved from fallen parachutes, was sold in the market without coupons from which we made underwear at home. The “Make do and Mend” campaign had persuaded us all to darn our stockings and patch our clothes throughout the war….
“From each of these aspects of a wedding, it is noticeable that we were all living a “greener” life, albeit unconsciously and of course out of sheer necessity. I haven’t even mentioned shortage of electricity and gas which on many occasions we had to do without altogether!”