Congratulations on your upcoming wedding! A Pagan Wedding, known as a handfasting , is a very personal thing and it can be whatever you want it to be. Think about things such as where would you like it to be? Who do you want to come? What deities do you want to invite (if any) and other items such as that.
The biggest question to answer revolves around who else will be present. Will all those attending be Pagan? Or will you also have non-Pagans attending? If there are non-Pagans, then ask yourself about how tolerant they would be of openly Pagan practices. If you believe they would be uncomfortable with openly Pagan rites, then you can soften it by describing it as a medieval wedding as many of the ancient practices, such as the handfasting itself, lasted well into medieval times.
The second biggest question is whether you want this to be a legally binding ceremony. If you do then you must go through whatever procedures there are where you live to get a marriage license AND the person conducting the ceremony must be legally certified to do so in your state or country. The latter can be avoided by having a civil ceremony at the courthouse. Once that is done, the issues of certification and marriage licenses are out of the way and you are free to have whatever Pagan ceremony you want. Just make sure to follow all the required legal steps for your marriage or it could come back to bite you later with issues of child custody, taxes, etc.
There are some books out there on the topic of handfasting which can give you some excellent advice and ideas to help you plan:
" Handfasting and Wedding Rituals " by Raven Kaldera and Tannin Schwarzstein
" Magickal Weddings " by Joy Ferguson
" Tying the Knot " by Jade River (concentrates on gender neutral rituals)
In addition, there are two handfasting rituals on the page belonging to my former coven which I have personally used in conducting handfastings. They can and have been used for gendered, non-gendered, and poly handfastings. The first is overtly Pagan. The second one works really well if many of your guests are not specifically Pagan.
Most of the guests coming to the wedding are pagan oriented but only a few are deeply religious Christians but I am not going to change the wedding according to their preferences if they don't like it then they don't have to come. But you have provided some good insights into a pagan wedding so thanks for that
Congratulations, I'm getting handfasted in October [it was supposed to be October last year, thank you very much pandemic]
I don't know where you're from, but see if you can find an officiant who does Pagan weddings [I'm using All Seasons Weddings, but I think they're just for Ontario Canada, but I'm sure you could ask if they know of any in your area] You know your guests and their comfort level, so you have a few options. Personally, I've been to a number of handfastings who didn't make a big deal of it, so I'm not either, but I know a few people [like my friend who's marrying a catholic next year] they make a quick statement during the ceremony to explain, but not in too much detail. Something simple like "as your lives are interwoven, so too will we tie your hands" something to make it all symbolic but not bring up the fact they're a witch. Granted, if your family is more open, you could do more. Everyone coming to my wedding knows to varying degrees [I either told them, or someone I told informed them] So, while I won't be calling the quarters or having cake and ale, I will be doing a hail to my gods. It won't involve anyone and it'll act as a blessing, so I don't see anyone getting too upset. Otherwise, any ceremony involving my deities or other witchy things will be between my fiance and I.
Otherwise, from what I've researched and seen, you hold your hands, and the priest/priestess lays the centre of the cord on top of your hands. They then ask you a question or have you say some vows [do you promise to love your partner? you answer yes] then they wrap the cord once, turn to your partner and ask them the same question or something similar. Lather, rinse, repeat until they tie the knot and you slip your hands out of the cord. It can be as simple or complex as you want it.
Word of caution, the cord seems simple enough, and you should make it with your partner to weave your energy together, but if you can't braid to save your life [like me] you might consider purchasing one. It'll save you a headache trying to figure out which cord comes next in the design lol. Also, regarding the cord, while you can use the colours for your wedding [I did that, purple and green with a white cord] you could also choose colours that represent what you desire your marriage to be [one friend did that, red for passion, pink for love, yellow for joy, green for abundance, and blue for trust] or, you could make several cords to be laid over each other [another friend did one cord for each colour of the rainbow flag because they're both members of the LGBT community. The priestess would ask them a question and then place another cord on their hands, then wrap all six while saying a blessing] point is, it's your cord, so design it however you like, just remember your skill level and if you don't think you have the time, energy, desire, skill, whatever to complete it in time, buy it, then cleanse and charge it with your partner.
