“When’s the big day?”: The days and times of Catholic wedding masses, 1871-1960

Introduction

I have been reading old newspaper articles about Catholic weddings for about seven years now. Throughout that time, I have been haunted by the phrase “wedding breakfasts.” I wondered, each time I saw the phrase, how that worked logistically, with wedding mass times, and resolved one day to do a broad search of Catholic wedding masses and when (what day of the week, and what time of day) they happened. My results are below, and I am finally free of what is possibly my most inane and irritating research topic to date.

There is a great deal of scholarship (rightfully so) on what I would call Catholic policies: what was written down in rituals, missals, and other prescriptive texts. I confess that I’m just as interested in Catholic procedure: what did people actually do? Did they follow the rules? Were there local variations no one thought to write down? (Will future historians know that my very own wedding mass had the Creed, which probably should not have been included? Will history forgive my crimes?)

For many topics, this is an impossible question because of the type or quantity of records left to us. This is to say nothing of the fact that the historical records that do survive may not be representative of society at the time. For example, we are more likely to know about a royal wedding than my wedding.

The beauty of newspapers is that it gives us a peek into how the average person may have lived their life.

Methods

I searched the Catholic News Archive with this search string:

("nuptial mass" OR "wedding mass") AND celebrated

I only counted a result if the clipping included:

• the announcement of a Catholic wedding with a Mass
• this wedding had already taken place
• this announcement mentioned both a time of day and a day of the week (I did count results that said “morning”)

Initially, I wanted my scope to be as broad as possible. This was a ridiculous decision. I had not considered a rather obvious fact that one newspaper issue could have numerous wedding announcements. Each result could represent dozens of relevant results, and my initial search had over 3,600 results.

An example of a perfect result. A wedding Mass, a time of day (6:30am), and a day of the week (Thursday). The Catholic Northwest Progress, Volume 32, Number 1, 1 January 1926.

An example of a pair of results that did not make the cut; neither result mentions a day or time. Did you know “griege” was being used in the 1940s? The Catholic Northwest Progress, Volume 49, Number 17, 26 April 1946 Edition 02.

On top of that, I couldn’t think of a way to expedite the text mining process. I couldn’t rely on OCR; in my experience, OCR is particularly weak at transcribing numbers. The Catholic News Archive does have a neat function that allows you to display results as images (Advanced Search — Search Summaries — Images). This method allows you to see, without clicking into the newspaper issue itself, a small thumbnail of your search terms as they actually appear in the newspaper. The pieces of information I wanted – time of day and day of week – generally did not appear close enough to my search terms. The image snippet was therefore useless (only for this project! I’ll be back for you one day, Search Summaries — Images!).

Ultimately, I did this project manually, reading one result at a time. Don’t ever let me do that again. Because I was full of hubris and kept my scope broad, my final results are a bit messier than my other data projects. I leave it to the reader to determine if my final results provide anything of value.

Above all other considerations, I am interested in ordinary people, and what they thought was interesting enough to write down. In that spirit, I included several dozen of my favorite clippings in the “Vignettes” section at the end. I encourage you to read those, if nothing else.

Results

My search retrieved over 3,600 results across 30 newspapers. The majority of those 30 newspapers had zero relevant results.

Philadelphia’s The Catholic Standard and Times accounted for a solid third of my results, spanning 1916-1968. After going through several years across different decades, I found to my dismay that TCS&T almost never included time of day and day of week for wedding mass announcements. Had they done so, I am confident that the trends in my data would look different. For example, a few relevant results in TCS&T mentioned Saturday morning wedding masses, more frequently than other contemporary newspapers. Ultimately, I excluded TCS&T results.

After excluding TCS&T, I was left with 1,779 raw results. After deduplicating and cleaning, I had 1,002 results. Some of those results had multiple relevant weddings, leaving me with 1,324 relevant results all told, from 1871-1960.

Table. All search results.

Charts. Results by newspaper.

Time of day

Table. Time of day, as recorded.

Table. Time of day, aggregated.

Charts. The times of day.

Day of week

Table. Day of week.

Charts. The days of the week

Discussion

Let us begin with what we cannot say.

These results cannot offer any insight about the frequency of Catholic weddings, or the ratio of Catholic weddings with masses to Catholic weddings without masses. In a way, my insistence to include only weddings that mention a mass, a time of day, and a day of the week, may paint a distorted picture of history. I wanted to include newspapers from different parts of the country, so that I could not be accused of geographical bias. I did have a coast to coast sample, but I would recommend against drawing strict conclusions based on region. It was not uncommon for a newspaper to report on a wedding from another part of the country, and a significant number of my results were from three separate Ohio newspapers (see Results).

What can we say?

In 100 words or fewer: Within the time range and regions I analyzed, 75% of wedding masses took place on Tuesday or Wednesday. 65% took place before 9am.

It is not surprising that Catholic wedding masses happened in the morning, given the Third Council of Baltimore’s ban on afternoon and evening weddings. What is a surprise to me is how early the wedding masses were. This seemingly banal look into old wedding announcements adds color and human detail to a) a different approach to work days, and b) the former strictness of the Eucharistic fast. If you were fasting from all food and drink starting at midnight, a 7:30am wedding mass may sound quite appealing. Otherwise, I hesitate to draw too many conclusions, as this data in particular feels imprecise due to shifting editorial policies at the newspapers. Of the few relevant announcements I found in the 1940s-1950s, almost none of them mentioned a wedding mass time.

Similarly, I am not surprised that Saturday weddings were less common than they are now, but I did not expect the winners to be Tuesday and Wednesday. Before 1918, I found very few weddings on Friday-Sunday. In 1918-1925, we see a gradual decline of Tuesday-Wednesday wedding masses, usually in favor of Thursday-Saturday. By 1937, the tides have turned and Thursday-Saturday was more common than Tuesday-Wednesday.

The decade with the most announcements – the 1900s – also happens to be the same decade Pope Pius X released Ne Temere, a decree on the celebration of marriage. In fact, we can spot the exact moment the populace reacted to Pius’ decree. Pius released Ne Temere in 1907, to take effect in 1908. The three Ohio newspapers (The Catholic Columbian, The Catholic Telegraph, The Catholic Universe) reported 51 wedding masses in 1906, 93 wedding masses in 1907 (a burst of piety and zeal!), and 25 wedding masses in 1908.

Around the mid-1920s, announcements of wedding masses begin to decline. (This is partly because of the available holdings in the Catholic News Archive.) By the 1940s, I could spot subtle signs of editorial relaxation on wedding mass announcements. By 1969, I found an explicit acknowledgement from The Catholic Northwest Progress that they had stopped publishing wedding announcements entirely some years before. (I counted merely 8 applicable wedding mass announcements from the newspaper in question from 1945-1953; I found nothing after 1953).

In this particular newspaper, I saw a sudden shift in the 1940s with wedding descriptions. Rather than including any information about when the wedding happened, the clipping simply says the wedding happened “recently.” This is likely more efficient editorially, but it grieves me that the editors of years past didn’t take my research whims into consideration. The Catholic Northwest Progress, Volume 48, Number 31, 3 August 1945.

“It has been a number of years since the Progress, because of lack of space and production limitations, reluctantly inaugurated the policy of not printing archdiocesan wedding news. It was adopted reluctantly because of the nature of the sacrament and the importance of the event in the lives of the bride and groom and their families.” The Catholic Northwest Progress, Volume 72, Number 33, 8 August 1969.

Conclusion

Rather than give a conclusion for what I believe is a straightforward topic, I am ending with a column from Father Edward Sweeney in 1892. Sweeney (1843-1909) served as a teacher at (and the vice-president of) St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland.

I celebrated a Nuptial Mass to-day for the second time in a priestly career of more than twenty years. Does this seem strange to you?

The first time was in a little city in York State, when a young man called to arrange for his marriage with a girl of my “parish.” It didn’t enter my head that he wanted a wedding Mass, so completely had we departed from ancient Catholic practice. Imagine my surprise and delight when I saw that’s what he wanted. I said: “You have given us a lesson that was needed, and 1 thank you sincerely.” He came from the diocese of Burlington, into which doubtless the French Canadians had introduced the proper manner of solemnizing marriage. Our people were almost entirely of Irish origin, and I suppose persecution and poverty had caused the sacraments amongst them, like the other rites of religion, to be administered with as scant adornment as might be.

The following Sunday 1 spoke to the people of the Nuptial Mass, and urged those about to marry to do so in the true Catholic way. In vain! I never had another there.

Of course this was before the Third Plenary Council. I wonder have things improved since then! And yet, O, the pity of it! And yet, they would complain to you sometimes of the shortness of the marriage service, and insinuate something vague, about what certain Protestant sects do—- Alas! Ignorant that they were! What ritual is so grand, what rite so solemn, what prayers can be compared to that ritual, that Sacrifice, those blessings and supplications used by our Holy Mother Church in imploring God’s benediction on her marrying children?

But how are the people to know this? Easily enough. Let them get the Manual of Prayers ordered by the Council just referred to, and they will begin to see and to appreciate the unapproachable eloquence and beauty of the sacred liturgy.

However, ’tis not this that makes them disregard the Nuptial Mass. It is that their circumstances are such, at least in cities, that the evenings suit their convenience and social requirements better. And religion is sacrificed to social necessity. Do I blame them? Not I. I know their devotion too well. I pity them. And hope that they will gradually break through those ways of the times of servitude and poverty, and choose an hour and a manner becoming freemen and Catholics. Let them, in short, take a lesson from Canada and Maryland.

Let me menti no [sic] another circumstance in this connection. The bride and groom received Holy Communion at Mass. So, also, did the two groomsmen and bridesmaids. Just think of that, my dear young men and young women of the North! Did you ever see that done in your part of the country? Ah! That’s something like Catholicity, isn’t it? In God’s name, “go you and do likewise.” Then your assistance at the holy altar will not be a hollow sham, a spectacle for giggling girls in the gallery, and howling boys in the street, but a help to the new man and wife, a sight giving joy to your pastor’s heart, and shedding around on the families and on all the people the spirit of decent holy purity.

After the Mass, which took place in the quiet rustic chapel in which thirty generations of “mountain” boys have breathed their prayers and raised their youthful voices in chant, I got into my dog-cart, and followed the newly married party to the bride’s home where the breakfast was spread. O, pleasant, simple mountain home, at the heart of Annandale! She was born in that humble, unpretending farmhouse, she and her mother before her. The walls were old and uneven, the floor rough in all its cleanliness, the rooms rather scant and the furniture old and plain. But there was the venerable grandmother, who had not been able to go out so early, to receive, at the door, the kiss of the young bride. There was her married sister, with an infant in her arms. There were several of her brothers and sisters to make the old house rejoice in its fecundity—there was her father who had accompanied her to the chapel and her mother, who had staid at home to get the feast ready, both of them still strong and fair, beaming with satisfaction and joy at the happiness of their children, and the presence of their friends and their priest. She helped to make the bread we broke, and the wedding cake, into which I, being requested, plunged the carving knife. She had been taught in the neighboring school, at the foot of the valley,, where the brook at one side and the mill-race on the other make music and coolness the long summer day through. She came unto her husband no mere ornamental doll to be exhibited in gaudy parlors, but a sensible, industrious, skillful housewife, able Io mend his shirt and iron his stockings, to cook his frugal meals, to read for him when he is tired, and withal to entertain him and his people with the innocent diversions of these gentle, hardy mountaineers of “My Maryland.” How quick these girls are to put on the woman! I noticed this, in the quiet, yet determined and mistressly way in which, when he forgetfully seated himself at the table, she had him stand up again and wait till grace was said. Don’t let her know I told you. Goodbye.

“But the presents, Father?” Humbug, my dear children.

The Catholic Columbian, Volume 17, Number 30, 23 July 1892.

Vignettes

A rare sighting of a pontifical wedding. The Catholic Telegraph, 16 February 1882.

The bride and groom used the wedding march from Lohengrin – a perennially popular choice, even with clerical denouncements. The Catholic Northwest Progress, Volume 12, Number 13, 23 October 1908.

Elsewhere in wedding history: “In the matter of Organ Music the Wedding Marches from “Lohengrin” by R. Wagner from “Midsummer Night’s Dream” by F. Mendelssohn are not to be played at any time within a church or chapel.” Dress, Alphonsus. Approved list of church music for the Archdiocese of Dubuque,edited by the Archdiocesan Music Commission. Dubuque, IA: Columbia College Press, 1938. https://doi.org/10.7274/24779028

One man’s reflections on the frequency of Catholic weddings in his area. The Catholic Columbian, Volume 22, Number 46, 13 November 1897.

An obituary that mentions the deceased’s wedding mass at home in 1875. The Catholic Universe, Volume 33, Number 20, 9 November 1906.

The first wedding mass in Denmark in four centuries. The Catholic Universe, Volume 38, Number 24, 8 December 1911.

Typo in the first line with “nutial high Mass.” If you ever think to yourself that historians of the future will overlook your typos, I’m here to tell you that I won’t. The Catholic Northwest Progress, Volume 51, Number 14, 9 April 1948.

One of the first instances I’ve seen of a bride leaving a bouquet to Mary. Interestingly, this custom (in this instance) took place not only after the wedding mass, but after the reception. The Monitor, Volume C, Number 40, 31 January 1958.

A wedding at home, requiring episcopal permission. The Catholic Columbian, Volume 20, Number 21, 1 June 1895.

3 weddings in 1 day! The Catholic Universe, Volume 25, Number 1278, 13 January 1899.

Research crossover!! Monsignor Stephen Cummins, the officiant of this 1959 wedding, would go on to become a peritus at the Second Vatican Council. The Monitor, Volume CII, Number 29, 16 October 1959.

A good description of the not-uncommon double reception: a breakfast immediately after the ceremonies, then a bigger reception in the evening. The Catholic Universe, Volume 30, Number 1550, 17 June 1904.

Carlisle, PA was the home of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. Here, Minnie Maria Nick (North Carolina, Cherokee) married Joseph Sauve (North Dakota, French Chippewa). Pictures of Sauve can be found at the Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center hosted by Dickinson College. The Catholic Telegraph, Volume LXXV, Number 27, 5 July 1906

A typically busy wedding day. The Catholic Northwest Progress, Volume 14, Number 16, 20 January 1911.

Perhaps the oddest comment I found in print: “The marriage of Miss Lucille Corbett and Clarence Peed came as a great surprise to their many friends.” The Catholic Northwest Progress, Volume 39, Number 43, 17 November 1922.

“Hereafter there are to be no “private weddings” in St. Augustine’s parish, Manchester, N.H., according to the announcement made by the pastor, Rev. J. A. Chevalier. No wedding will be celebrated without a nuptial Mass, except in a few rare instances, and in those cases he would be the judge on the question of ceremony. His announcement was in line with the recommendations of Bishop Delany concerning marriages.” The Catholic Northwest Progress, Volume 8, Number 15, 13 April 1906.

Joseph Weisensell and Rose Mary Schraff were the first couple married at St. Ignatius in Cleveland, Ohio. Joseph (1883-1939) was born in Germany, and emigrated to the United States in 1886, at three years old, with his parents Johann and Christine Weisenseel. Rose (1885-1969) was born in Cleveland. Joseph’s parents are buried at Calvary Cemetery; Joseph and Rose, at St. Mary Cemetery, about three miles down the road from where they married. The Catholic Universe, Volume 30, Number 1552, 1 July 1904.

A remarkable double, double wedding: “…Miss Rosemary Steckler became the bride of Tech. Corp. Joseph Bender and Miss Angeline Bender became the bride of John Steckler.” The Catholic Northwest Progress, Volume 46, Number 52, 31 December 1943 Edition 02.

The bride was escorted by her brother. The Catholic Northwest Progress, Volume 27, Number 42, 16 October 1931.

And this bride was escorted by her mother! The Catholic Northwest Progress, Volume 19, Number 42, 20 October 1916.

I was surprised at how common Thanksgiving Day weddings were. The Catholic Northwest Progress, Volume 38, Number 45, 2 December 1921.

Header: a collage of clippings. Top, left to right:

1: “P.M. Masses, Weddings Permitted In Parishes.” The Catholic Transcript, Volume LXIX, Number 22, 23 September 1966.
2: “A Morning Wedding.” The Catholic Universe, Volume 40, Number 34, 20 February 1914
3: “An Afternoon Nuptial Mass.” The St. Louis Review, Volume 2, Number 29, 17 July 1942.

Bottom, left to right:
4: “Weddings.” The Catholic Universe, Volume 33, Number 46, 10 May 1907
5: “Popular Young Couple Wed At Early Ceremony.” The Catholic Northwest Progress, Volume 35, Number 36, 8 September 1933.
6: “The Wedding Season.” The Catholic Columbian, Volume 21, Number 49, 5 December 1896.