Celtic wedding are an perfect way of expressing your being a Celt. It is also a way of incorporating traditional values, symbols, themes and customs into major events in your life. However, Celtic wedding are massively popular not only among people with a Celtic tradition, but among other couples who are taken by the historic Celtic culture.
Celtic wedding have traditional symbolic decorations, often based on the Celtic knot. Welsh, Irish and Scottish families will occasionally marry in ancient buildings like castles or old manors, but that is not the norm. A traditional Celtic wedding is not significantly different from a normal British wedding in a lot of ways.
However, the number of similarities between Celtic wedding ceremony traditions and normal British-style weddings goes a lot further than that. If you want a traditional British style wedding, you will be going unwittingly for a Celtic wedding. But you can beef up the Celtic element of the wedding ritual even further without sinking into silly theatrics.
Loving Cup: The traditional cup is a two-handled bowl with Celtic designs engraved onto it. The idea of the Loving Cup ceremony is for the bride and groom to share their first drink together as husband and wife and to demonstrate the coming together of their two families.
The Bell of Truce: A bell is blessed and then given to the bride and groom. The couple is required to ring the bell, while thinking loving thoughts of each other. The bell is then kept at home as a token of the wedding day. If an argument begins, the bell can be rung by either the husband or wife to call a truce. The tinkling sound is intended to remind the couple of their wedding vows and to help them relive happy memories from their wedding day.
Handfasting: Early Celts used to ?tie the knot?. It originates from a pre-Christian custom of literally tying a couple’s wrists together in a form of probationary marriage lasting a year and a day, at the end of which a new agreement was made or the couple parted ways.
Bride’s Bouquet: In Celtic wedding traditions brides carried herbs beneath their veils to signify fidelity, and spices to frighten off evil spirits.
Ring finger: Ancient Celts thought that there was a vein in the third finger of the left hand that ran directly to the heart, so ring placed on that finger demonstrated a strong love and vow to the other.
Wedding cake: A thin loaf was broken over the bride’s head at the end of the service to indicate fertility. The wheat from which it was made symbolized fertility and the guests enthusiastically picked up the pieces as good luck charms.
It was also common for the Celtic groom to toss a handful of coins into the crowd after the wedding, in the belief that this would bring them luck in the years ahead.