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Tag Archives: St. George’s

St. George’s Hanover Square

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In Regency romance lore, St. George’s Hanover Square is the church where many society couples married during the Regency. Located in Mayfair, it’s a lovely “little” church (little compared to something like St Paul’s Cathedral!) which looks a bit like St. Martin-in-the-Fields. You can still see St. George’s Hanover Square today. Here are some photos I took last time I toured Mayfair. (They were doing some repair work at the time, as you can see!) There’s isn’t a huge amount of Regency Mayfair still standing (St James’s is much better preserved) — Almack’s is gone, and so much else — but there are some gems left (like this one!) Here are a couple more pictures:

I do love taking pictures of churches and cathedrals — they photograph so well!

If anyone wants to see more pictures of Regency London, let us know! (There’s a lot more where these came from . . .)

Cara
Cara King, www.caraking.com
MY LADY GAMESTER — Signet Regency, November 2005

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Regency Weddings

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Today I’m on the road, traveling back home from a family wedding this weekend. So, because I’m thinking about weddings, I’ve adapted a blog I wrote a couple of years ago for Harlequin Romance authors who had a blog promoting their series, The Wedding Planners. I was their guest blogger, talking about Regency Weddings.

I was married a brazillion years ago, long before I started writing or reading Regency romance. It wasn’t too long ago I realized I actually had a Regency Wedding!

Here I am with my bridesmaids. Notice that our dresses are all empire-waisted. Notice the leg-o-mutton sleeves on my dress and the puffed sleeves on the bridesmaids dresses.

Now compare these dresses to two Regency Fashion Prints from the fashion magazines of 1815.

See the similarities?

I had a Regency Wedding!

And you can have a Regency Wedding, too. There are many sites on the internet offering custom made Regency wedding dresses. Here are two of them:

Regency Reproductions

Fashions in Time

Or if you are handy you could make your Regency gown:

McCall’s Pattern M6030

In fact, if you so desire, you can have a Regency wedding in one of the historic sites in the UK.

This is St. George’s, the church on Havover Square in Mayfair, London, where many Regency lords and ladies held their weddings. You can, too.

You can also have your wedding in the Prince Regent’s summer home, the Brighton Pavilion in Brighton Hove.

In a room like this:

If that is too fussy for you, or if you must marry in a hurry, like many couples in Regency Romances, you can elope to Gretna Green over the border in Scotland. Here I am standing at the historic anvil. Regency couples were married “over the anvil” in Gretna Green.
No, this isn’t another wedding photo. It is me with the tour guide at Gretna Green when I visited in 2005. I’m holding a copy of The Wagering Widow which began with a Gretna Green wedding.

How about it? Have I convinced you to have a Regency Wedding?

Ask me any questions you like about Regency Weddings, but I won’t be home until after 7 pm. I’ll let you know then how this wedding was. What do you think? Do you think the bride will have worn: a) Leg o’ mutton sleeves b) empire waist dress c) stapless dress?

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