C.S. Lewis married Joy Davidman in a Church of England ceremony in 1957.
The ceremony took place on 21 March 1957 at Holy Trinity Church, Headington Quarry, in Oxford. The marriage followed a civil ceremony in 1956, which had been conducted for legal reasons and did not initially receive the church’s recognition as a Christian marriage.
Davidman was an American writer who had moved to England. Her relationship with Lewis developed from friendship and correspondence into marriage. The couple lived together at The Kilns, Lewis’s home near Oxford, until Davidman died of cancer in 1960.
Lewis later wrote about grief after her death, but that later work should not obscure the chronology of the marriage itself. The civil ceremony and the Church of England ceremony are separate events, making 1956 and 1957 distinct dates in their story.