My great-grandparents Henry Moyse Gobbitt and Ruth Elizabeth Jane Minns were married in the village of Bredfield, near Woodbridge, on 17 October 1898. Despite the damage, their wedding photo provides a useful snapshot of the styles of hats and dresses worn for special occasions by the families of farmers and schoolteachers in Suffolk at that time. Two of the older women (the groom's mother, aged 48, and possibly her husband's octogenarian aunt) appear to be the most reluctant to abandon the wider "leg-of-mutton" sleeves that had been more fashionable in the middle of the decade.
The wedding caught the attention of the local press, which unfortunately muddled the names and outfits of the bridesmaids, but thanks to the Woodbridge Reporter of 20 October 1898 (p. 5, col. 3) we can see that two of them (Ruth's sister Carrie Minns and Henry's sister Maydie Gobbitt, sitting at the front) wore dresses of white alpaca, with white hats trimmed to match, while those standing behind the "happy pair" (Ruth's sister Nellie Minns and Bessie Adams, presumably a friend) were dressed in stone blue silk. The bride herself "wore a dress of white Bengaline silk, with veil and orange blossoms, and carried a lovely white bouquet".
Many of the guests are listed in the attached table. The people in the back row (the tallest of whom, E8, has a nasty brown stain above his head) probably include members of the family of Robert Holmes White of Boulge Hall (1834-1901). Several other gift-givers named in the newspapers have not yet been identified in the photo.
David
