Handfasting

[Jasper]

Anyone had one? Care to share how it went? My Mum is getting married in Jan and wants to incorporate some pagan aspects into her wedding....although she is not technically pagan, she is rather alternative.
She is having her wedding at her house which will be taking on a Turkish like theme. She is not Christian at all and neither is her partner, and she's really interested in incorporating some parts of other religions that fit her and Kris personality into her wedding. Really its not going to be formal at all and more just like a great big party. My sis and I are bridesmaides and aparently giving (throwing! ha ha ha) her away and Elora will be flower girl, but thats all thats traditional.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[Ali_celt]

My wedding was a civil ceremony that I co-wrote with the lady who performed it - I wanted a full-on pagan handfasting but my parents are very christian so that would have gone down like a lead balloon.
I had a couple of friends do a reading, we had our hands bound with a handfasting cord (I braided together 3 different colour ribbons for that purpose in a little ceremony about a week earlier) and we included some nice gaelic chants in the background.
If you want, I can dig up the poem. It will take me a while though - I don't have it on the computer (this was before I relied on having one LOL) and its somewhere in a box that still hasn't been unpacked since the move!
ALi

[Ayla]

I had a handfasting. We had a civil celebrant there only to do the legal parts (two bits in all I think?) the rest of the ceremony was conducted by a pagan friend.

Hubby and I walked down the aisle together as a show of equality - not me coming to him on his terms you know? We had three candles present - one silver candle, one gold candle to represent Goddess & God and one big white candle. The first two were both lit representing our lives now and we picked up our corresponding candle and lit the third one together to show our lives combining. We made our vows and then our pagan friend tied a ribbon around our hands (the hand binding/fasting bit) and as he did so he gave the blessings of the elements to our marriage.

[lizlea]

Kelli???

[Jasper]

That sounds lovely guys. I would love to pass on the poms and blessings to Mum. I also has candles and I had a lovely poem about hands in our wedding as I incorporated a few things into my wedding also. Thanks for you ideas.

[Rinelle]

I loved the idea of handfasting, but in the end we decided for a water ceremony, where we each poured different coloured water into a bowl, and the colours mixed together. It went really well, and we still have the coloured water.

[rebjm]

I went to a wedding last Sept that included hand fasting. I didn't get to see (too short/bad seats) but I remember the cord was put in a knot in a bag to keep to represent their bondd forever.

It was a maibstream wedding with a Celtic twist in a lovely little non denominational church.

They did a North, South, East, West blessing and also passed the wedding rings around to all the guests in a little bag. I was 7 months pregnant and like to think I infused them with fertilty vibes - Their first baby is due in October.

[Chameleon]

We had a handfasting, and included our friends in the ceremony, each stepped forward and placed a cord around hands and said their bit. It was lovely and ment so much to us to have these ppl involved. I can't find a picture of us with the cords on (haven't put all the photos on photobucket yet) but these two should give you an idea.

our vows and the handfasting

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...inceremony.jpg


the cords that were used, and a bowl that was given to us a few days before the wedding as a pressie, it was perfect so we had to use it

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...m_IMG_2426.jpg

[Jasper]

Oh thats lovely, thank you so much for sharing that!