Ceremonial May

I woke up happy but exhausted this morning, having completed a marathon May week of graduate festivities: three dinners, our department retreat, and two commencement ceremonies (graduate and undergraduate) plus the usual end-of-the-semester chair business. I missed the Royal Wedding, but seem to be able to glean both the highlights and every little detail from the massive all-media coverage! It strikes me from both my academic and personal perspectives that May is a month for ceremonies: I was a May bride myself, despite that old superstitious saying (which Harry and Meghan also ignored): marry in the month of May, and you’ll surely rue the day. May makes sense for ceremonies, most of which require ceremonial garb: it’s warm enough to go coatless to show said garb off, but not too warm. That fresh spring green is everywhere, along with fragrant flowering, providing the perfect decorative setting for whatever you are celebrating or commemorating. Commencements and weddings are natural occasions for this time of year, but looking back through the seasonal year it seems that other celebrations were also planned for May: the big exposition openings of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, royal coronations when possible, and several other unique events. The traditional May Day festivities of the first day of this merry month set the stage for more to come.

The Royal Wedding, the Marriage Ceremony in St George’s Chapel, Windsor. Illustration for The Illustrated London News, 6 May 1882 (Queen Victoria’s youngest son, Prince Leopold, actually married Princess Helen of Waldeck-Pyrmont on 27 April 1882, but it was May news a week later); yesterday’s wedding in St. George’s Chapel, WP pool photo; Graduation at Salem State College in 1966 (Salem State University Archives and Special Collections) and Salem State University yesterday.

 Opening of the Great Exhibition by Queen Victoria, 1 May 1851 by Henry Courtney Selous, Victoria & Albert Museum; opening of the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition, 1876, Library of Congress; “Golden Spike” Ceremony marking the completion of the transcontinental railroad in the U.S., May 10, 1896, Library of Congress; “Coronation Number” of the Illustrated London News commemorating George VI’s coronation in May of 1937; King Charles II’s coronation was in April of the 1660, but the traditional holiday marking both his succession and the restoration of the monarchy, “Oak Apple Day”, was celebrated on his birthday, May 29; Decoration Day in late May, Cuba, 1899—commemorating the lost soldiers of the Spanish American War, Smithsonian Institution.