Sunday weddings are quite rare today, but in the early days of the English Reformation, couples could only be married on Sunday. When Archbishop Thomas Cranmer wrote the first Book of Common Prayer in 1549, the marriage rite was brief, because it was intended for use during morning worship. At that time, Sunday morning worship consisted of Morning Prayer (Mattins), the Great Litany and Holy Communion. If Holy Matrimony was to be solemnized, it took the place of the Great Litany. The bride and groom were then immediately to receive Holy Communion. In those days, very few people actually received Communion on a Sunday; although they attended the service, they watched from the nave as the priest celebrated communion. The few souls who desired to receive would kneel in the choir area, and the priests would walk among them to distribute communion.

Puritan reformers sought to move the worship of the church in a more evangelical direction. To them, marriage followed by communion looked like a Roman Catholic Nuptual Mass, to which they were vehemently opposed. The Puritans also strongly objected to the use of wedding rings, which they also felt smacked of popery. The Puritans were opposed to frequent reception of communion, and they wanted to separate the celebration of Holy Matrimony from Sunday communion.

Eventually the Puritans took control of England and replaced the monarch, thus suppressing the Church of England. However, in 1660 the King was restored, and Anglicanism with him. In an effort to renew the church, the King asked his leading clerics and theologians to meet to discuss revisions to the Book of Common Prayer. They wished to keep a high, sacramental theology of Holy Communion which was unpopular with the Puritans; so as a way of appeasing the Puritans, they agreed to separate the marriage rite from Holy Communion. In the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, Holy Matrimony stands on its own as an independent service. The practice of Sunday weddings ceased so completely that until recently it was actually against the law to be married on a Sunday in England.

In Canadian practice, Sunday weddings are very rare. Today's ceremony looks back to the early days of Anglicanism and to the time when the life of a couple in the community was closely bound with their life in the church. Archbishop Cranmer would heartily approve.