Latest News

History of the Maltese Wedding IV – The Wedding Feast

Local folklore expert Guido Lanfranco tells OurWedding what one could expect from a wedding party in the olden days.

A modern Maltese wedding reception usually takes place in a hotel, a grand hall or a palazzo, but in the past, the vast majority of wedding feasts would be held at the bride’s family home. According to Guido Lanfranco’s Zwieg, Twelid u Mewt (Marriage, Birth and Death), after the ceremony in church, the guests would reconvene at the bride’s house for a party that would consist almost exclusively of sweet treats – kokotina (cocoa), panedispanja (sponge cake), ice cream, perlini, biscuits with marzipan icing and almond cakes, as well as some spirits such as rozolin (a rosewater liqueur), brandy, whisky and vermouth.

The main wedding feast would be called il-mejda (the table). If the wedding was in the morning, il-mejda would most likely take place in the afternoon. Not all the guests at the wedding would be invited; in fact, it would be mostly for the bride and groom’s closest family members. The spread would be enormous, and packed full of hearty Maltese fare – soups, pies, pasta, stews, poultry, rabbit and baked rice were all commonly-found items on the menu, with free-flowing wines and lemonade and fruit for pudding. It’s interesting to note that there would be no such thing as a wedding cake – any wedding day sweets belonged strictly in the morning celebration that took place immediately after the ceremony.

The bride and groom would typically be seated on chairs that were slightly better or more elevated than the rest of the guests’, which would often have been rented from the parish church. The bride would wait to receive the wedding gifts by sitting down with a large handkerchief or napkin on her lap, usually one made by her own hand before the wedding. The gifts would typically be money, or a piece of gold jewellery. The guests would shake her hand or kiss her and then place the gift in the handkerchief. Unlike the modern day reception, when the bride and the groom ride off in a plush car together, the bride would typically stay on in the family home for another eight days, until it was time to join her husband in their new marital home.