/among the upper classes, marriages were often arranged between families, though both the bride and groom were supposed to consent to marriage, it wasn't supposed to be forced. Sometimes young people could be married off very young, in their early teens. Even among the upper classes though there were love matches "Nobody had any objections to love, so long as the price was right" as Alison Plowden says in 'elizabethan England' (that is, so long as the person you fell in love with was of the right sort of social status and had enough money).
Among the common people, it was more usual for people to choose their own marriage partners, and to marry in their mid-twenties, when they could afford to set up home together. Young people tended to socialise in groups, as too early pairing-off was discouraged. Round dances and kissing games were popular as they allowed a certain amount of physical contact with the opposite sex without anyone getting too seriously involved. By the time a couple came to be bethrothed, they would have had years to get to know each other in the company of their friends. Once a couple were bethrothed, it was acceptable for them to spend time alone together, and was tradiotally a period of sexual license, brides were sometimes pregnant at the time of their wedding.
The actual wedding ceremony was in some ways very different from today's marriage ceremony. The white wedding is an invention of the 18th century. In elizabethan times, the bride would normally just wear her best dress, adorned with coloured ribbons, and she would have her hair hanging down loose as a token of her virginity, and she would be garlanded with flowers and ears of corn. It was the custom for the groom and his friends to go in procession to the bride's house, to fetch her away to the church. The bride was traditonally supposed to put on a show of reluctance, sometimes she and her friends would even barricade themselves into the house, and the groom and his friends would have to fight their way in to get to her. Then they would all go in procession to the church, accompanied by musicians. Weddings usually took place on Sundays, and were traditionally celebrated in the church porch. The blessing of the ring was an important part of the ceremony, as was the traditional kiss from the priest.
After the wedding, the bride and groom and their friends would go in procession to the couple's new home. On the way there might be obstacles put in their way, and the groom might have to pay a toll to get through, this was supposed to show he would be a generous head of the household. At their new home, the couple would be expected to provide a feast for their friends, with abundant food and drink, and music and dancing. The young couple would be showered with gifts of money, plate and linen for their new home, but there was no honeymoon and very little privacy, for the highspot of the jollity of every wedding feast was the public bedding of bride and groom.
It was the bridesmaids' duty to prepare the bride for bed, to throw her stocking and distribute her garters and the knots of ribbon from her gown (if thse had not already been snatched off in the general horseplay), before the groom arrived, surrounded by his friends. At grand weddings there might be a bishop or two on hand to bless the marriage bed, but in every case everyone still capable of standing up expected to come crowding into the nuptial chamber to offer good wishes, encouragement and explicit advice.
