Sepia Saturday: Love and Marriage
This is a repost of a blog entry made in 2012. The reason I am reposting as I have decided to join genie friends who post in Pauleen Cass’s Sepia Saturday series. The theme for the August Sepia Saturday post is Love and Marriage. Immediately, I thought of my parent’s wedding day, for a couple of reasons. I love their wedding photo, at left. And, also, because the had a slightly unusual wedding day. I found out only a few years ago, that my Dad played football in between the wedding service and the reception.
reblog:
My parents THOMAS LLOYD JONES and EUNICE JOY MORRISON recently celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary. They were married at Wesley Church in Shepparton on 05 July 1952.
My father was a star footballer for one of the local football teams, Shepparton United, and of course, he had a match to play on his wedding day. The wedding was held in the middle of the day, with Dad’s team-mates as part of the wedding party. After the wedding, the boys went off and played their match. Unfortunately they lost. I’m not sure if Mum watched that match. Writing this reminds me that I must ask her. Dad describes the wedding as one of the big social events in the town, with the traffic coming to a stop to allow the wedding car to pass through.
I have many photo clippings from the Shepparton News describing the wedding and the football match, and there were quite a few reports in both the social pages and the sports pages.
Two of them are transcribed below as the copies I have are not in good condition
From THE SHEPPARTON NEWS 07 July 1952
“His Big Day Out: United defender TOMMY JONES had a big programme on Saturday when after his wedding that morning, he had a torrid afternoon against the Shepparton blitz”
and
“Attending the JONES-MORRISON wedding on Saturday, Mrs. DeTracy was well turned out in a junior blue suit and accessoreies, her ingenious double brimmed beret having white polka dots and twisted junior blue cord. She wore white gardenias in her lapel. Mrs. Woodhouse wore a blue hat with her grey suit. Mrs. Pat O’Brien wore tan accessories with her bisuit suit. Mrs. Walter Byrne, of Williamstown, was in a junior blue suit, with brilliant contrasting colour of yellow in her blouse, and carnation on her lapel. Mrs. Gwen Pick wore a handsome tan coat with tan accessories. Mrs. Walker’s forest green coat and tan accessories were worn with creme and yellow roses. Mrs. Sly chose a soft tailored fawn suit, tan accessories, and dress spray of pink carnations.
Today this is called multi tasking đ PS I see the Shepparton News reported about the wedding already a century before the fact đ
Thanks for pointing out my booboo. Much appreciated
I have heard of something similar in my neck of the woods in the Scottish Borders where the groom played a rugby match on his wedding day and friends hired him a helicopter to get him back to his wedding! It too was widely covered in the press. .
Makes for a memorable wedding day for everyone.
Your mother must be a special lady, very understanding..
I think it was probably a case of ‘love me love my football’ Chris
Probably, but still…
You simply do what you gotta do and make it work! Good rehearsal for the marriage! Obviously, at 60 years, it worked. đ
I love the that Dad got to do something he loved on his wedding day.
I see we both posted photographs of our parents’ weddings, but your father playing football in between ceremony and reception certainly added something extra. Funnily enough, my mother was also a Morrison, although I discovered that her Irish grandparents changed their surname from Morrissey to Morrison when they arrived in NZ, apparently because they thought the spelling was easier.
Look forward to reading your parent’s wedding post. My Morrison’s are from Scotland. Interesting that Morrissey was thought to be easier to spell than Morrison
That’s a lovely little photo. My parents didn’t have any wedding photos taken, but I still have the decoration that was on top of their cake. It was 1945 and there wasn’t money for anything fancy, let alone butter and sugar for a big cake.
It was a much simpler time. Due to necessity of course
That’s amazing – having a big game in the middle of the wedding festivities. And interesting that they described what the people attending the wedding were wearing too. I would love to see that in a family wedding article!
Love that photo. It looks like it came from a storybook. Hope they had a storybook marriage to match the photo.