Why is it called the Wedding Breakfast?
Many Professional Toastmaster’s, when announcing the serving of the ‘Wedding Breakfast’, will have been greeted with the comments, “Breakfast? Are we having Bacon & Eggs?
A ‘wedding breakfast’ is a ‘feast’ given to the newlyweds and guests after the wedding, making it equivalent to a wedding reception that serves a meal.
Nowadays the wedding breakfast is not normally a morning meal, nor does it look like a typical breakfast, so it’s name can be confusing.
The name is claimed to have arisen from the fact that in pre-Reformation times, the wedding service was usually a Eucharistic Mass and that the newlyweds would therefore have been fasting before the wedding in order to be eligible to receive the sacrament of Holy Communion.
After the wedding ceremony was complete, the priest would bless and distribute some wine, cakes and sweetmeats, which were then handed round to the company, including the newlyweds. This distribution of food and drink was therefore a literal “break fast” for the newly married couple, through others in attendance would not necessarily take Communion and therefore would not necessarily have been fasting.
In the same way many wedding traditions – from fathers giving brides away to wearing white – have endured through the years, this one is very similar.
All of our Professional Toastmasters in The Executive Guild Of Toastmasters, will have been trained in the traditions of your Wedding Day, but will also work with you to make your special day, special!
For more information contact us today by email or call on 07958 708380.