How I Dug Into Ferdinand & Isabella’s Wedding Drama
So yesterday my brain just went “Yo, what ACTUALLY went down with that Ferdinand and Isabella wedding everybody talks about?” like it was some medieval reality show. Grabbed my dusty laptop and dove straight down the rabbit hole.
First thing? I hit up Wikipedia. Big mistake. It read like somebody’s boring homework – just dates and places and fancy titles. “Unified Spain” blah blah. Felt like chewing cardboard. So I switched tactics hardcore.
Started punching wild searches into Google Books. Found this ancient scanned diary from some dude who delivered wine barrels to the castle right before the ceremony. He wrote “Everybody rushing like headless chickens” and that the place reeked of fish because they’d cheapened out on catering. Bet that ain’t in the textbooks.
Then things got spicy in old church records. Turns out Ferdinand showed up late? Not fashionably late – like “oops wrong castle” late. And get this – they had two different priests arguing over who got to run the ceremony cause nobody decided who was top dog. Total circus backstage.
Even found receipts showing Isabella pawned one of her necklaces secretly to pay extra guards. Why? Because Ferdinand’s creepy uncle kept sending armed weirdos to try and kidnap her before the vows. Drama level: over 9000.
My favorite nonsense? Ferdinand’s vows mentioned “love you forever” BUT in some documents his lawyer scribbled corrections changing it to “honor you politically.” Guy literally brought a lawyer to edit his marriage promises. Savage.
And man the gossip! Found letters between castle maids saying Ferdinand flirted with Isabella’s cousin at the afterparty and got pinched under the table til he yelped. Wedding photos would’ve been fire emoji material.
After six hours? My notes looked crazy:
- Groom late
- Fish stank
- Uncle’s kidnap squad
- Lawyer-edited vows
- Flirting + revenge pinching
Why’d I lose a whole Tuesday on this? Reminded me of my cousin’s wedding disaster last summer – cheap buffet, groomsman threw up in the fountain, everybody fighting over parking spots. History’s just messy people doing messy things with fancier hats. Truth hits harder than those glossy fairy tales.
