Despite the extremely chilly weather we have been experiencing, I hope that spring is just around the corner. With spring comes warmth, sunshine….and weddings! My husband and I have been blessed and honored to be invited to three weddings this spring, but sadly they all fall on the same weekend. In my experience, special invitations, buses and men asking you for a date (when I was a single woman in my twenties of course) have one thing in common: nothing happens for ages then three show up at once!
Such is the case with this April. One wedding is in beautiful Savannah, one is on lovely Amelia Island, and one is in Inverness, in the far north of Scotland.
As the Scottish wedding is for my nephew, of course we will be traveling to the cold, blowy highlands.
Unfortunately, and if we are really lucky, we will have high temperatures in the low 50s, and nighttime temperatures will be in the high 30s.
On the bright side there is only a 50% chance it will rain on any given day! I am a lover of heat, sunshine and dry weather, but despite that we are looking forward to the big event in cold, windy, rainy Scotland.
I do enjoy a good wedding but also recognize that organizing these events is a lot of hard work and expense, so it is no surprise that some people choose to quietly elope and surprise family and friends with the news that they have tied the knot. While today we generally think of the term as a couple quietly getting married with perhaps a few close friends or family members in attendance, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines the original meaning of the term “elope” as “to run away secretly with the intention of getting married usually without parental consent”. In the USA, Las Vegas became the elopement city of choice in the 1930s when Nevada relaxed their wedding laws, making it easy for couples to show up and get married quickly without any residency requirements.
In Great Britain, Scotland, especially the small-town of Gretna Green located just over the border from England, became the hub for eloping couples in the middle of the 18th century. This little town is only about 300 miles from London and much closer than that for many British people living in the Midlands and north of England and it became the national center for elopement in the late 1700s. The government of the time was trying to bring under control the many scandalous marriages that were taking place all over Britain which often involved seduction of young women, bigamy and fraud. In 1753, Lord Hardwicke, who was the Lord Chancellor and ran England’s 18th century version of the Justice Department, addressed the governing Houses of Parliament proclaiming that it was essential that ‘irregular’ marriages should become illegal and that marriage should be regulated by the Anglican Church of England. The result of all this was the 1754 Marriage Act, which made it a legal requirement for wedding ceremonies to take place in church. In addition, couples had to be 21 years of age to marry without the consent of their parents, whereas before this law no consent was required as long as the couple were at least 16 years old.
Unfortunately for the English government of the day, Scottish law was and still is different to the laws governing England, so a loophole became quickly apparent. Once over the Scottish border, a couple over the age of 16 had only to declare their intentions to be husband and wife in the presence of two witnesses, and their word was law. A type of romantic revolution spread through the youth of 18th century England as many young couples fled to Gretna Green which developed a lucrative industry built around quick marriages.
It was another 186 years before the Scots relented and outlawed these ‘handfasting’ ceremonies, but these Scottish ceremonies were legally binding until 1940, and the term “going to Gretna Green” remains shorthand for “eloping” in many parts of England to this day.
At Gretna Green the ceremony was usually performed by the blacksmith over what was known as the ‘lucky’ anvil and many a young couple knocked on his door requesting immediate marriage. The Marriage (Scotland) Act of 1939 declared that marriages must be conducted by a minister or registrar, beginning July 1, 1940. But young runaway couples still came because, under Scottish law, parental consent was not required from the age of 16 although it remained at the age of 21 throughout the rest of Britain. My mother was only 19 years old when she married my father in England in 1963 and had to have the permission of my grandfather. Six years after that 18 became the age of consent throughout Britain, and in 2002, registrars were allowed to perform civil wedding ceremonies.
I have visited Gretna Green, as a tourist not a bride, and the town has certainly made the most of its history to attract tourism especially to the Old Blacksmith’s Shop (the “Old Smity”).
Even today Gretna Green remains a popular site for marriage ceremonies because of its romantic associations. There is a lot more information at www.britannica.com I will leave you with a traditional Scottish wedding blessing which reflects the reality of Scottish weather : “May you always have walls for the wind, a roof for the rain, tea beside the fire, laughter to cheer you, those you love near you and all your heart might desire.”
God Bless America and every couple planning to marry in 2026!
Lesley grew up in London, England and made Georgia her home in 2009. She can be contacted at lesley@lesleyfrancispr.com or via her PR and marketing agency at www.lesleyfrancispr.com