While the king was in that town [Guimarães] making due preparations for war, discussions also took place concerning his marriage. It was considered that, if the blessings [of the Church] were not to be conferred the very next day, then they might have to be postponed for a long time, because Septuagesima was imminent [leading to the beginning of Lent], when, according to Church custom, such a celebration may not be held. With everyone's agreement the king wrote at once to the Bishop of Oporto, asking him to have everything ready the next day for the blessing, and this was what the bishop duly did. The king rode off the same afternoon and travelled all night, so that he arrived in the city early next morning, having covered 8 leagues.

Dom João was already prepared, dressed in his pontifical robes, with his fellow clergy duly wearing the appropriate apparel. The princess was very ceremoniously brought to the cathedral from the palace, where she had been staying. There, in the name of the Lord God and in the presence of everyone, the king received her as his [future] lawfully wedded wife. This [betrothal] ceremony took place with the greatest possible solemnity and was enacted on 2 February, the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin Mary, when the king was twenty-nine years of age and the princess, his wife[-to-be] was twenty-eight.

After the blessing was over, the king immediately commanded that the wedding ceremony and the setting up of his household be arranged for a week from the following Thursday. He wrote letters to the towns and cities of his kingdom, in which he declared it to be his pleasure that they should be represented at the festivities. The content of the letters, which he sent to all of them, was as follows: