Typical ancient Greek wedding day

Greek weddings are known for huge guest lists, plate smashing, and Greek foods including Baklava, so I thought it would be fun to look at a typical ancient Greek wedding day. I'll start by saying that in ancient Greece, the wedding ceremony was considered a decisive coming-of-age rite with the marriageable age for girls ranging from 12-15 years (men were 25-30). To narrow the focus, what we will look at today are the customs included in the wedding festivities back then that in some ways reflect our own modern customs.

 

Ancient Greek wedding feast

In ancient Greece, every wedding included a feast. It provided a bountiful amount of meat often supplied by the prenuptial sacrifices. Friends and family of both the bride and groom feasted together in a ritual sense of community, but men and women sat on opposite sides of the room. 

In Euangelos’ play the Anakalyptomene, we get an idea of just how ostentatious the food displayed might have been. In his depiction, the feast included veal, pork, hare, custards cheese, pastries, lydian treats, eggs cake, and while foods did vary from one region to another, there was one traditional food offered at every Greek wedding called “sesame.” It was made from ground sesame seeds mixed with honey and formed into cakes. This custom was tied to fertility. The belief was that the prolific nature of the sesame seed could somehow be transmitted to the new couple.

Ancient Greek bridal customs

• Ancient Greek bridal fashion included loosely draped gowns gathered at the waist and touching the floor. Form-fitting bridal gowns suggested the sensuality of their gods and today the elegant goddess gown continues to be a popular choice. 
• Ancient Greek brides also wore veils of yellow or red. These colors represented fire and were thought to scare away evil spirits. Today brides most often wear white which is thought to symbolize purity. 
• In Ancient Greece, the brides also wore diamonds. In that culture they were considered teardrops of the gods, reflecting the “flames of love.”
• Ancient Greek brides brides carried or wore flower garlands because they believed flowers signified new beginnings, fidelity and hope of fertility.

Wedding guest list

Like modern-day Greek weddings, the ancients also invited friends and relatives of the bride and groom to the celebration. At that time, men and woman didn’t gather together publicly in the same place but weddings were different. The men and women were allowed to assemble in the same room, but as I mentioned above the men sat on one side and the women on the other. So the brides and grooms of ancient Greece basically had the same problem of deciding who to include on the guest list. In ancient Athens, they tried to curb this problem through legislation that limited the number of guests to 30. Even with this restriction, it was common-place to find freeloaders trying to take advantage of the abundant food.

Wedding venue

Ancient Greek weddings were often held in the home of one of the families--either the father of the bride or the groom, but in most cases the two families collaborated. However, weddings didn’t always take place in the home. The wedding depicted in Menander’s Dyskolos took place in the shrine of Pan. Today evidence from inscriptions reveal this happened in real life too. In a 300 B.C inscription from Cos, there is evidence that weddings were held in cult sanctuaries. In this particular case, the wedding took place in the sanctuary of Herakles Dionmdonteios. However, not just anyone could use a sanctuary because use was only available to members of the group who oversaw and cared for the facility. And with the use of a sanctuary there were rules. In this particular case, the wedding had to take place in the same month in which they celebrated a festival to Herakles and then the wedding could use part of the meat of the festival sacrifices as part of the feast. However, Herakle had to be present at the celebration in the form of a statue, and he also had to have his own dining couch.

Dancing and wedding processions

Today when we say “wedding dance” we would probably think of the father of the bride dancing with his daughter and the groom dancing with his mother, or even the bride and groom’s first dance as husband and wife. However, in ancient Greece, dances accompanied all the stages of the ceremony. This included young men whirling in dance as the bride was led through the city in the wedding procession. Yes, a wedding procession was a formal part of the wedding day and it included flutes, cymbals and songs. Sometimes the groom took part in the procession but not always. Other times, the bride was brought to the bridal chamber to meet the groom there.

Another procession followed the wedding as the bride was ushered back to the groom’s house. While we might look at these processions as tradition, the ancient Greeks’ thought them to be divine in nature and involving a combination of gods and heroes. I might have to write a post on this topic alone as it is quite involved.

The last custom I’ll mention here is that of pelting the bride and groom with leaves and blossoms which was another fertility custom. In what I found in my research, it looks like the modern-day Greek’s might still throw rice. Much of what we can learn about ancient Greek weddings is depicted on vases from that time. To learn more specifics about ancient weddings in Greece check out The Nuptial Ceremony of Ancient Greece and the Articulation of Male Control Through Ritual.

 

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Photo credit: historylink101, wikimedia, wikimedia, wikimedia

Resource: The Wedding in Ancient Athens, By John Howard Oakley, Rebecca H. Sinos