June Weddings

My checkbook is still in shock after all of last month’s graduations (from kindergarten through college), and now there are the gifts for June weddings to be bought (four at last count). My family is strictly non-traditional when it comes to wedding months. We celebrate anniversaries in May, August, and October, but, except for extended family members, none in June. So I started wondering about the tradition of June weddings.

A little research taught me that the tradition is an ancient one, perhaps going back to pre-history. The summer solstice occurs in June, and this was a joyous occasion for the ancients. The harshness of winter was over, crops had been planted, food and medicinal herbs were easier to find, and the world was green and beautiful. Also, some ancient people believed that it was unlucky to marry in May because to do so was to compete with the male and female divinities whose “grand union” took place in early May. Moving nearer our own time, a few millennia nearer at least, the Romans celebrated the festival of Juno Monetas on June 1. Juno, goddess of marriage and childbirth, was worshipped in many guises, and as Juno Moneta, she was considered “protectress of funds.”  In all these facets, her festival period, with its attendant blessings, must have seemed an auspicious time for a wedding.

Even the term “honeymoon” is linked to June. The only full moon in June was traditionally called the Honey Moon because it was thought to be the best time to harvest honey from the hive. Honey was also thought to foster love and fertility, and thus newlyweds were given food and drink containing honey to ensure a happy and productive marriage.

In my region, an agrarian culture is not that far in the past. Three sets of my great-grandparents were farmers, and the cycle of planning and harvesting controlled their lives. I imagine that June was less busy for them and their neighbors than most other months, and children conceived in summer months would be born the following spring, increasing their chances of survival after the bleak winter months. Spring births also were less likely to interfere with the harvest in the fall. Also, travel would have been easier in the summer—for wedding guests and for the bridal couple’s wedding trip.


The phrase “June Bride” always evokes for me an image of the six brides-to-be in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954) singing the Johnny Mercer (a Georgia native, by the way) song by that title.

LIZA (Virginia Gibson)
Oh, they say when you marry in June,
You're a bride all your life.
SARAH (Betty Carr)
And the bridegroom who marries in June
Gets a sweetheart for a wife.
RUTH (Ruta Lee)
Winter weddings can be gay
Like a Christmas holiday.
MARTHA (Norma Doggett)
But the June bride hears the song
Of the spring that lasts all summer long.
DORCAS (Julie Newmar)
By the light of the silvery moon
Home you ride, side by side
LIZA
With the echo of Mendelssohn's tune

                                                          LIZA, SARAH & ALICE (Nancy Kilgas)
                                                        In your hearts as you ride.
                                                           ALL BRIDES
                                                       For they say when you marry in June,
                                      You will always be a bride.

I saw that movie first at an impressionable age. All those images of melting snow, flowers blooming, moonlight, a springtime baby,  and the shotgun wedding with six delighted couples . . . I loved it then, and it’s still a favorite oldie.

I’ve only written one wedding scene so far, and it takes place at Christmas, which seemed a lovely time for a wedding to me.

Maybe, in other times, there were reasons, practical and romantic, for marrying in June. But what about 2011? Why are so many brides and grooms still choosing June weddings?

When did your favorite weddings in life and in fiction take place?