The Wedding Spoons

In the eighteenth century a Scottish country bridegroom went to the goldsmiths of the Parliament Close in Edinburgh a few weeks before his wedding to buy the silver teaspoons that always came before a marriage. It took two journeys, one to choose the spoons and the initials to go on them and one to collect and pay, each sealed over a dram and small ale at John’s Coffee-house or the Baijen Hole. It was just as much the custom for the bride’s clothes and bed furniture to be inspected by a committee of matrons on the wedding eve.