Tuesday, 12 March 2013

Why do we call it a Wedding 'Breakfast' ?


 Why do we call it Wedding 'Breakfast' ?

extract from Wikipedia:

The name is claimed[3] to have arisen from the fact that in pre-Reformation times the wedding service was usually a Eucharistic Mass and that the bride and bridegroom 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 bride and groom. This distribution of food and drink was therefore a literal “break fast” for the bride and groom, though others in attendance would not necessarily take Communion and therefore would not necessarily have been fasting. Since usage of the phrase cannot be shown to date back earlier than the first half of the nineteenth century; however, a pre-16th century origin seems unlikely.

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