Even More Celtic Wedding Traditions!

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It looks like I haven't exhausted the list of Celtic wedding traditions on this blog, yet. Here are a few more by guest blogger Kim Wellington. Enjoy!

More Celtic Wedding Traditions

Celtic wedding traditions have a long and rich history as old as Ireland itself. Traditions for the ceremony and other wedding customs are steeped in symbolism and are meant to portend a long and happy marriage.

If you want to explore your Irish heritage in your wedding, or you just enjoy the culture and want to adapt some of its customs, here are some of the top Celtic wedding traditions that you could consider incorporating into your own celebration:

Locking the Door

Grooms are known for getting cold feet. To prevent the groom from letting his nerves get the best of him, friends and family would lock the door of the church to prevent him from running out. We're thinking that if you have to lock the door to keep the groom inside, the wedding might be facing bigger problems.

Irish Wedding Toast

There is a special toast that is shared at many traditional Irish weddings. It requires that all the guests gather around the married couple, and then the couple says "Friends and relatives, so fond and dear, 'tis our greatest pleasure to have you here. When many years this day has passed, fondest memories will always last. So we drink a cup of Irish mead and ask god's blessing in your hour of need."

The guests would then respond "On this special day, our wish to you, the goodness of the old, the best of the new. God bless you both who drink this mead; may it always fill your every need."

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The Month of Honey

The first month after the wedding is known as "the month of honey," and it is celebrated by drinking mead (or wine in the modern day). The couples are given enough of the honey drink to enjoy until the first new moon after their wedding, coining the term "honeymoon." The practice was meant to get the marriage off to a good start and to promote virility and fertility.

There are many more superstitions and traditions in Celtic weddings. These are some of the most often celebrated, and some of these have made their way into mainstream culture (or remnants of these traditions have). 

Did you include any of these Celtic traditions into your wedding ceremony? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Kim Willington is a freelance researcher for Helpdesksoftware.org, where she has recently been researching ticketing software. In her spare time, she enjoys antiquing and taking long walks with her retriever, Spencer.

Did you include any of these Celtic traditions for your wedding? What traditions did you use? Share your  thoughts in the comments below!

You'll find my own personal favorite wedding traditions, along with Celtic toasts, poems, and lore in the book that accompanies my CD "Haste to the Wedding" (but this book only accompanies the physical CD--the info isn't contained in downloads). Buy this CD at my website, on amazon.com, and CDBaby.com.

A Celtic Wedding!

Enjoy this lovely post from guest blogger Evelyn Reimer. And if you'd like to find out more about how to incorporate your favorite Celtic wedding traditions together with your wedding music, make sure to view "The Bride's Guide to Musicians: Live Wedding Music Made Easy and Affordable", published by Hal Leonard Books and available as a Kindle edition, too!

So you're finally starting to plan your wedding, and you are of an Irish, Scottish or otherwise Celtic background. It's very important to you to carry the traditions of your ancestors into your nuptial celebration, so how can you incorporate Celtic themes in your wedding ceremony and reception?

The Ceremony Location
Generally, a modern Celtic background is associated with Christianity, although there are some exceptions to that rule since the Celtics began in the days when paganism was popular. However, you most likely want to have a traditional ceremony in a church as many of the Celtic cultures feel that this is the appropriate place for a wedding. The exact rules are going to depend upon your church, as Celtic people can be any of a number of Christian denominations. When you are a pagan, try out some traditional pagan customs in an outdoor ceremony.

Handfasting
The Celtic handfasting is a tradition that comes out of the pagan times, when the Celtic culture was well and alive before the beginning of Christianity. Therefore, some churches may very well prohibit this tradition. However, if you are not having a ceremony in a church or if your church permits this practice, consider adding a Celtic handfasting to your ceremony. A ribbon or other such type of implement is used to tie together the hands of the bride and the groom. There are not many rules when it comes to handfastings, and couples have a lot of say here. They often choose to jump over a broom, which is also a tradition in African culture, or leap over a small fire to close out the ceremony.

The Food
How can you weave Celtic food into the reception menu line-up? Well, first check to see if your caterer has any suggestions or is even able to provide such cuisine. If you feel very strongly about having Celtic food at your reception, you must ask the reception hall about this before you book and put down a deposit. Some foods that are generally consider Celtic include Irish coffee, Irish soda bread, shepherds pie and corned beef and cabbage. Even if you can't have any of these for an entree, you may be able to have them for cocktail hour. If you're having a more casual and small reception, maybe some family members can do the cooking for you. Another idea is to locate Celtic caterers near you.

Celtic Music
Incorporating Celtic music into your ceremony and reception is one sure way to really enhance the vibe. At a church, you may be limited to the type of music you can use. However, if not-and for the reception-call different musicians in your area and search for reputable musicians online. You want to find musicians who truly understand and appreciate the sounds of the Celtic culture.

Some weddings tend to venture outside of the box, yet so many others are sticking with tradition. Incorporating these Celtic elements into your wedding shows love and respect for your ancestors' traditions that you plan to carry on into the new generation.

Evelyn Reimer writes about Irish culture, event planning & finding the best life insurance quotes.

Interested in being a guest blogger on this blog? Contact me for more info.

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Wedding Traditions--Their Origins and Meanings, Part 3

Here it is, June, the big wedding month. And finally, three more wedding traditions and their origins:

• At one time, weddings were week-long celebrations. In today's harried times, the rehearsal dinner creates perhaps the only chance for the couple's families to socialize.

• The word "bridal" comes from an old English custom. The bride brewed a strong "bride-ale" which was sold to friends after the wedding to help start the couple off.

• June became the month for weddings, because it was considered good luck to marry during the month named after Juno, the goddess of marriage and family.

Coming soon: Be sure to check back here for the chance to win valuable wedding prizes!

Wedding Traditions--Their Origins and Meanings, Part 2

Here are a few more traditions to add to last week's list:

• The term "Honeymoon" comes from a very old tradition. At one time, German and French couples drank a honey-sweetened wine each day for a month to celebrate the sweetness of their love. Another legend says that the honeymoon was a time to hide from the family and friends of the captured bride until tempers had cooled.

• The groom's cake tradition arose from the time when all weddings had two cakes--one to eat at the wedding and another for the guests to take home. Pieces of the groom's cake were saved to be eaten by the couple on their first anniversary.

• In many towns, the finest stores kept a list of gifts already purchased so that wedding guests could avoid duplication. Sometime between World War I and II, the practice was formalized as a service offered to department stores and called the "Bridal Registry".

More traditions in the next post...
Coming soon: Be sure to check back here for the chance to win valuable wedding prizes!

Wedding Traditions--Their Origins and Meanings, Part 1

Here at Lake Tahoe, summer wedding season is upon us. Have you ever wondered about the meanings behind the most common of wedding traditions? Here are some:

• We wear our wedding rings on the fourth finger of the left hand because it is believed that this finger is linked to the heart.

• In ancient times, a man was expected to acquire a wife by capturing her. She surrounded herself with female friends for protection and he enlisted his male friends to steal her away. The maids, playfully dressed alike to confuse the men.

• The French began the tradition of icing wedding cakes and topping them with small toys in the 17th century. As weddings became more elaborate, confectioners made their reputations on wedding cakes and tried to outdo one another with lavishness. Queen Victoria's daughter had a cake topped with small portraits of the bride and groom which led to today's tradition of small figures of the bride and groom on the cake.

More traditions in the next post...

Be sure to check back here for the chance to win valuable wedding prizes!

Your Romantic Ways to Wed?

In the recent posts, I’ve shared some Celtic, Irish, and Scottish wedding traditions. Before sharing some of the more unusual wedding traditions from around the world, I'd like to open up the conversation and hear from you:

• What are your favorite wedding traditions?

• Does your family have a new and fun wedding tradition?

• Did you start a new tradition that your children and grandchildren now follow?

Please comment with your new romantic ideas to tie the knot for anyone who is looking for a novel way to add some spice to their wedding festivities. Romance is never out of date, even if Valentine's Day has passed.

Next time: Unusual wedding traditions from around the world.....

More Celtic Wedding Traditions

In the last few posts, I’ve shared some traditions about Irish and Scottish weddings. Here are a few more Celtic wedding traditions:

• The Welsh Lovespoon--This may have been an early type fof engagement ring, or perhaps the accesptance of the cared spoon at least meant the beginning of a serious courtship, “going steady”, so to speak. Could this be where the term “spooning” originated? This giving of an elaborate, carved wooden spoon, decorated with keys hearts and balls, origanated in Wales during the 17th century.

• The Celtic Love Knot Design--The lines of the Celtic love knot entwined hearts, indicateing theat the two separate lives become one. Other populare knot designes are animals such as the heron, because  the heron mates for life. These designs are used to adorn invitatins, napkins, wrappings for favors, and embroidered into the wedding dress and the bride’s hanky. 

• Harvest Love Knots--In Northern Ireland, young men and women would take long braids of straw and twist them into decorative knots to give away as love tokens. When one’s lover accepted a harvest knot, it was assumed that a wedding would follow the next spring. Today, these knots are made with raffie and attorned with flowers and colorful ribbons. They’re used as boutonnieres for the groom, worn int he bride’s haire, attached to the bride’s bouquet, and even used as napkin rings at the wedding reception.

• Handfasting--This is a type of Celtic wedding ceremony dating back to the middle Ages, or possibly earlier. Many small villages did not have a local minister or jpriest to perform marriage ceremonies, so couples would perform a handfasting, which legally bound them until someone of the clergy could perform a ceremony. It was a temporary marrieagethat lasted for a year and a day. Handfasting is now included in may wedding ceremonies as a way to honor the couple’s celtic heritage. Their hands are bound together with a cord or a tartan cloth during the vows to show that from that pint foward, they will live and love as one. 

These wedding traditions, and more, can be found in the liner notes of my CD, “Haste to the Wedding” (Copyright©2005 Anne Roos):

“May all your joys be pure joys and all your pain champagne.”

--Traditional Irish Toast

Have your own Celtic wedding traditions to add? Please add a comment or two....Next time: Romantic wedding traditions (new and old) for everyone in honor of St. Valentine’s Day!

Interesting Scottish Wedding Traditions

My good friend and
great musician,
Marc Gunn

The first several months of the year, many brides are making plans for their upcoming weddings in the summer months. In the last post, I shared some traditions about Irish weddings, courtesy of my friend, Reverend David Beronio. You’ll find more traditions at his website.

Here’s what he shares about Scottish weddings:

The groom and his groomsmen often wear Scottish kilts, and traditionally, there are no undergarments worn! (Here's the classic joke, “What does a Scotsman wear beneath his kilt?” Answer: “His shoes!”). The groom may present the bride with an engraved silver teaspoon on their wedding day to symbolize that they will never go hungry. And the traditional sword dance is sometimes performed at their wedding reception. 

Here’s more information about Scottish traditions from the liner notes of my CD, “Haste to the Wedding” (Copyright©2005 Anne Roos):

In traditional Scottish weddings, the groom wears the kilt of his clan, and after the vows have been exchanged, he places a shawl or sash of his clan’s tartan over the shoulders of his bride. This signifies the acceptance and protection of her in the goom’s family clan.

In Scotland, shortbread has been used in wedding celebrations for centuries. An uncut round of shortbread has been broken over the bride’s head at her wedding, showering her with blessings. A safer way to include them would be to wrap individual slices of shortbread in cellophane, tied with neat bows, and provide them as favors at the reception. Either way, including shortbread in the wedding celebration is said to bring good luck and prosperity to all those who partake. (a great recipe for ginger shortbread is found within the pages of my “Haste to the Wedding” liner notes).

“My wife’s a winsome wee thing,

She is a handsome wee thing, 

She is a bonnie wee thing,

This sweet wee wife o’ mine.”

--Robert Burns

Have your own Scottish wedding traditions to add? Feel free to comment....Next time: More Celtic wedding traditions.

The Irish Hanky

Irish brides usually carry a linen handkerchief down the aisle to catch their bridal tears, a custom that may have started bylinen companies in Norhern Ireland.

These companies suggest that the hanky cam be saved as a christening bonnet for the couple's first baby and that the child can in turn, use the hanky for her own wedding. In this way, the hanky turns into a family heirloom as it carries many generations of tears of happiness. Tying a piece of rosemary to this family hanky symbolizes remembrance of those who used it in the past.

Copyright © 2005 by Anne Roos, excerpt from the liner notes to "Haste to the Wedding" CD, available on the Cambria Master Recordings Label. All rights reserved.

The Bell of Truce

The tradition of the bell of truce comes from the peasants in the west of Ireland, but it may also be attributed to St. Patrick. He thought the sound of a bell ringing would help perform miracles.

In a wedding ceremony, the bell of truce is blessed and presented to the bride and groom by the ceremony officiant. The couple is asked to give the bell a good hardy ring while thinking of each other and their future together. It's then taken home as a reminder of the wedding day. Whenever arguments arise, the rining of this bell sounds a truce. It serves as a reminder of the couple's wedding vows.

A bell of tuce also provides a decorative addition to the wedding ceremony an to the home-it may be made of Irish crystal, pewter, or iron.

Your heart is never away,
But ever with mine, for ever,
For ever without endeavour,
To-morrow, love, as to-day;
Two blent hearts never astray,
Two souls no power may sever,
Together, O my love, for ever.

D.G. Rossetti

Copyright © 2005 by Anne Roos, excerpt from the liner notes to "Haste to the Wedding" CD, available on the Cambria Master Recordings Label. All rights reserved.