The Bidding was a general invitation to all the friends of the bride and bridegroom-elect to meet them at the houses of their respective parents or any other house appointed for the occasion. All were welcomed to attend, even a stranger who should happen to be staying in the neighbourhood at the time, but it was an understood thing that every person who did attend, whether male or female, contributed something, however small, in order to make a purse for the young couple, who, on the other hand, naturally expected donations from those whose weddings they had attended themselves. So it was to the advantage of the bride and bridegroom-elect to make their wedding as public as possible, as the greater the number of guests, the greater the donation, so it was the custom to send the "Gwahoddwr," or Bidder all round the surrounding districts to invite the neighbours and friends about three weeks, more or less, before the wedding took place. The banns were, of course, published as in England. The Gwahoddwr or Bidder's circuit was one of the most pleasant and merry features of the rural weddings in South Wales in times past, and he was greeted everywhere, especially when it happened that he was, as such often was the case, a merry wag with fluent speech and a poet; but it was necessary that he should be a real friend to the young couple on whose behalf he invited the guests. This important wedding official as he went from house to house, carried a staff of office in his hand, a long pole, or a white wand, as a rule a willow-wand, from which the bark had been peeled off. This white stick was decorated with coloured ribbons plying at the end of it; his hat also, and often his breast was gaily decorated in a similar manner. The Gwahoddwr, thus attired, knocked at the door of each guest and entered the house amidst the smiles of the old people and the giggling of the young. Then he would take his stand in the centre of the house, and strike the floor with his staff to enforce silence, and announce the wedding, and the names of bride and bridegroom-elect, their place of abode, and enumerate the great preparations made to entertain the guests, etc. As a rule, the Gwahoddwr made this announcement in a set speech of prose, and often repeated a rhyme also on the occasion. The following was the speech of a Gwahoddwr in Llanbadarn Fawr, Cardiganshire in 1762, quoted in Meyrick's "History of Cardiganshire," from the miscellaneous papers of Mr. Lewis Morris:-- "Speech of the Bidder in Llanbadarn Fawr, 1762."