It's Spring, and after Spring comes Summer and all the weddings both seasons imply. To celebrate the beginning of this festive season here are some of the photographs from the McCord Museum's collection on the topic.
The first image from 1925 is particularly striking: the Church representative is prominent and the bride and groom are native. Compare his shoes to her shoes, the priest's face to the groom's face and to the bride's posture. Seems like the image encompasses the complexities of colonial rule in a nutshell.
The rest of the images are more flamboyant. The 1930s wedding party on St. Urbain Street is terrific (again notice the bottines of the little boy of the right side of the frame - that very same model is doing a real fashion come back in that same area today). The 1895 bridal party looks like a mash-up of Tommy Hilfiger's happy family meets Grace Coddington's version of a funeral. Finally Miss Ryan's wedding photograph is adorable because of the size of everything: the girls' dresses, the girls' hair (it was after all les années folles - flap girls) and the size of the four protagonists relative to each other.
Vive les mariés!
Wedding, English River, ON, about 1925
Wedding party on St. Martin's Church steps, 730 St. Urbain Street, Montreal, QC, about 1930
Mrs J.E. St. Binney's bridal party and guests, Halifax, NS, about 1895
Miss Ryan's wedding, Montreal, QC, 1921
