Why a Coat of Arms Makes the Perfect Wedding Gift

When a man and a woman married, the standard display put both coats on one shield, split vertically down the middle. The husband's arms go in dexter — the bearer's right, which is the viewer's left, and the senior side — and the wife's in sinister. The result is called an impalement.

Three things about it are worth knowing, and all three are useful when choosing a gift.

An impalement belongs to the couple, not to the family. It is personal to that marriage and it is not inherited: the children bear their father's arms, differenced, not the impaled version. An impaled shield is a snapshot of two people, which is exactly what a wedding gift is.

If the bride had no brothers, the rule changes. A woman whose father died leaving no sons was an heraldic heiress, and her arms went on a small shield in the centre of her husband's — an escutcheon of pretence — and, critically, their children could quarter both coats permanently. That mechanism is why great shields accumulate dozens of quarters: every one is a marriage where the wife's line would otherwise have ended.

A widow kept the impalement, borne on a lozenge rather than a shield.

So the honest heraldic answer to "whose arms go on a wedding gift" is: both.

The simplest way to honour it is a pair: a framed coat of arms for each of the two family names, hung together. It is the impalement in two frames, it costs nothing extra in complexity, and it says the thing the tradition says — two families, side by side, from this day.

If you are giving one rather than two, the question to settle is which name the couple are actually building their household under, and whether the bride is keeping hers. Ask. It is not an awkward question at a wedding; it is the one everybody is already thinking about.

And a note that matters: a framed piece shows the full achievement — shield, helm, mantling, crest and motto — at a size where every element reads. On a ring or a seal most of that has to be dropped. This is the occasion where the whole thing fits.

The one piece of heraldic equipment with an actual job to do at a wedding, and it has to arrive early to be useful.

A wax seal cut with the family coat of arms seals the invitations — which is what seals were invented for. Before literacy was general a document was authenticated by pressing an engraved design into wax, and the seal rather than the signature was legally binding.

It is also the gift that keeps working afterwards: thank-you cards, anniversaries, and every letter the household sends for the next forty years.

Two practical notes. For invitations going through the post, use modern flexible sealing wax rather than traditional shellac, which is brittle and shatters in a sorting machine. And chill the seal between impressions — a cold bezel releases cleanly, a warm one pulls strings.

Give it at the engagement, not the wedding.

A signet ring or a women's signet ring is the traditional marriage gift in the heraldic world — and a women's signet works particularly well worn above a wedding band, where a conventional ring would compete.

Sizing, since it is almost always a surprise: borrow a ring they already wear on the intended finger, measure at the end of the day rather than the morning, and know that a heavy bezel limits how far a band can be resized afterwards.

And detail: an engraver working on a bezel a centimetre across has room for a silhouette. A crest reduces well; a full shield with many charges does not.

The Heritage Volume sets out what the historical record holds for a surname — where it comes from, what it meant, where its bearers were concentrated, and the arms associated with it. Two of them, one for each name, is the readable version of an impalement.

The Crossing Volume suits a couple whose families arrived from elsewhere — the route, the period, the conditions, the port.

Both arrive digitally, which makes them the honest choice when the wedding is in nine days.

How Your Report Is Made sets out exactly which parts come from public records and which our system builds, including the crest, which is original artwork rather than a facsimile of an armorial entry.

Which surnames, and spelled how. Check against a document rather than memory — Ó Súilleabháin, O'Sullivan and Sullivan lead to different places, and so do Müller, Mueller and Miller. Engraving cannot be undone.

And leave time. Personalised pieces are made rather than picked off a shelf. Work three weeks back from the date and add shipping — and if the gift is a seal for the invitations, work back from when the invitations go out, which is months earlier.

• Anything presented as proof of noble descent. Arms were borne by particular families in particular places, not by everyone sharing a surname, and a common name was adopted independently by dozens of unrelated families. At a wedding, in front of both families, that claim is a hostage to the first guest who looks it up.
• A shield with no source. If nobody can tell you which family and which place it came from, it is a picture rather than a record. Our guide to verifying a coat of arms covers how to check, including how to check us.
• A motto presented as the family's immutable creed. In England a motto forms no part of a grant of arms and could be changed at will.

For later anniversaries, see our guide to heritage anniversary gifts.