Bidding home page, with links to related pages
There are very few descriptions of what the bride, groom or any other member of the wedding party wore at the ceremony or the feast.
The use of traditional costumes at weddings
1799 Caernarfonshire
Catherine Hutton’s father attended a wedding in the ‘in the hollow of the mountains’ in north Wales.
Not a female appeared in anything other than woollen, which some had fashioned into gowns, and others into bedgowns, nor one without the beaver hat except the mother of the bride, who being cook, might be obliged to take it off.
Hutton, Catherine, [Letters of tours of Wales]: letter 21, Caernarvon Sept 14th 1799, NLW MS 19079C, ff. 95-96
1830s (1878)
Mewn teulu lluosog, rhoddid gwaith i lawer iawn o deilwriaid, cryddion, seiri, a gwnïadyddesau. Byddai y teilwr a’í gynorthwywyr yno am wythnosau yn parotoi y dillad, ac edrychid gyda dyddordeb ac edmygedd ar wisg briodas y gwr ieuanc yn cyrhaedd trefn a pherffeithrwydd dan law fedrus y prif deiliwr. Mewn ystafell arall, byddai y gwniadyddesau yn parotoi dillad y merched, a mawr yr helbul oedd gyda ffitio a thrwsio y cyfryw.
(In extended families, there were many types of craft practiced, including tailors, shoemakers, carpenters and seamstresses. The tailor and his assistants would be there for weeks preparing the garments, and the young man’s wedding costume, made by the skilled hand of the master tailor would be watched with admiration. In another room, the seamstresses prepared the women’s clothes.)
Anon, ‘Priodas yn Nghymru’ Y Beirniad, rhif. 77, (Merthyr Tydfil, July 1878), pp. 362-371
1860
The weddings of the poor are generally far more joyous than the weddings of the rich … The women are as capable of the most devoted affection as the women of any country: many a faithful heart beats within their russet jackets, and many a throbbing brow under the stately, high-crowned hat, however gaily garnished by a silver buckle.
Hall, S.C., Mr and Mrs, ‘The Companion Guide (by Railway) in South Wales’ pt. 7, The Art Journal, vol. 6, (1860), pp. 217-220
1937
At the revival of the custom of a bidding (neithior) on the eve of her wedding in the Lledr Valley, north Wales, in 1937, Telynores Dwyryd, [the harpist, Eleanor Jones, nee Dwyryd, 1915-1978] ‘wore the traditional Welsh marriage costume – a chimney-pot hat, a gown of plaid of striking design and a beautifully woven shawl.’
Manchester Guardian, 20 Dec 1937, p. 10
Early Tourists in Wales 