Even More Celtic Wedding Traditions!

photo credit: neate photos
via photopin cc

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."

photo credit: infomatique
via photopin cc 

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.

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!

Celtic Holiday Gift Baskets

I’ll admit that I haven’t put a lot of time into my postings as of late....I have two new CDs coming out that should be available for your holiday shopping! So, I’ve been thinking about creating holiday gift baskets to add to my website store.

Of course I’ll include my CDs, and here are some of the other items I am thinking of including:

• One or two tea cups filled with Irish Breakfast tea bags
• A Celtic bookmark
• Celtic beads or pendants
and ???

What would you like to see in my Celtic music holiday gift baskets?

The Celtic Loving Cup

In Scotland, the Loving Cup is known as a quaich, which comes from the Gaelic word cuach, meaning cup. This is used for the wedding toast. It is often highly decorated and has a handle on either side of the cup.

A Loving Cup ceremony, or Anam Cara, can be included as part of the wedding vows or during the wedding reception. The purpose of this ceremony is for the bride and gtoom to share their first drink together as a married couple. The meaning of the cup is "togetherness". The cup is then passes down throughout the generations to insure happiness and good fortune to all who drink from it.

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 Welsh Lovespoon

The lovespoon may have represented an early type of engagement ring, or perhaps the acceptance of the carved spoon at least meant the beginning of a serious courtship, "going steady", so to speak. Could this be where the term "spooning" originated? This custom
originated in Wales during the 17th century.

The most elaborate lovespoons are carved from one piece of wood, demonstrating the skill of the carvers. The handle of the spoon is often intricately decorated with various symbols-keys, hearts, balls, wheels, and bells-each representing such blessings as love, good luck, children, wealth, and health.

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.

July/August Celtic Trivia: The Bridal Veil and Old Shoes

"The love you give away is the only love you keep"--Elbert Hubbard

Fairies are said to covet anything that is beautiful, which includes the bride and all her fineries.

The wedding veil has special meaning in Ireland. In ancient time, it was believed to hide the bride away from leprechauns and fairies who would try to capture the bride and take her beautiful dress. Today in Ireland, veils are often embroidered with shamrocks or the Claddagh symbol.

It is also lucky for the bride and groom to wear old shoes when they get married. This would prevent their being kidnapped by fairies. In County Cork, it is believed that fairies would whisk away the wedding couple to the "Land of the Ever Young," just to get a hold of a pair of handsome new shoes.

Read more Celtic wedding traditions and toasts in the liner notes of my "Haste to the Wedding" CD, ©2005 Anne Roos.

Celtic Shaman Podcast

Celtic Shaman Podcast,
shamanic journey, Celtic tradition

I am pleased that my music is featured in the February 1, 2009 edition of the Celtic Shaman Podcast in honor of the festival Imbolc, which is one of the four principal festivals in the Irish calendar, celebrated among Gaelic peoples. Imbolc is most commonly celebrated on February 2nd, which falls halfway between the Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox in the northern hemisphere.

Fire and purification are an important aspect of this festival. The lighting of candles and fires represents the return of warmth and the increasing power of the Sun over the coming months. The holiday is dedicated to Brighid or Bride, the Gaelic goddess of poetry, healing, and smithcraft, and in the Christian period, Imbolc was adopted as St. Brighid’s Day.

In the following podcast, you'll be treated to stories and my music in celebration of this Celtic festival. Here’s an excerpt from the show notes:

Bride: Light of Imbolc

"Brighid of the Mantles, your mantle over me. Brighid of the Fair White Hands, your hand in mine."

Included is Dillon Carlyon’s reading from A Book of Saints and Wonders by Lady Gregory [1906] Book One: Brigit, The Mary of the Gael found at Sacred Texts.

Tira Brandon-Evans comments on traditions connected with Bride and Imbolc and reads from notes and invocations from the Carmina Gadelica. Smooring the Fire, Guarding the Flocks, and The Spell of the Fox. Dillon alternates with Tira reading the invocations in Gaelic and English.

The invocations are followed by “Epping Forest”, a song from my album A Light in the Forest.

If you enjoy our podcasts you may wish to join our public group or visit our homepage at www.faeryshaman.org. Have a happy and blessed Imbolc. Be well, be strong, be free!

Sample my CDs—take a trip to the Listening Room.