6 Reverend tips & Viking Wedding Traditions on Holly’s hot wedding tips.
Wedding helmet
Meeting people and getting the inside scoop is something I love to do. I met with Reverend Kim Tavendale, Ordained Minister and wedding Celebrant, to ask her for the inside scoop on what brides need to know when planning their ceremony. Kim was inspired to become a Reverend after performing her friend’s wedding, and has continued for the past 6 years. Here is what she told me.
- Connect with your Minister. Be sure they share your view of the ceremony, this includes your style, sense of humor, and really understands you and your relationship.
- Combine the traditional and religious elements that have significance to you. For example:
- Unity candles
- Canopy’s
- Breaking of glasses
- Lassos
- Fish tank
- Check to see if your Officiant is registered with the national association of wedding officiants.
- Ask to proof the final draft of your wedding ceremony.
- Ask what your Officiant will be wearing (Kim makes custom stoles to match the wedding colors) It is important your officiant does not upstage you with their clothing.
- Stop planning once in a while and remember you are a couple in love.
Viking Wedding Traditions:
- No woman should be married against her will (King Alfred)
- Asking the woman if she takes this man in marriage
- Hand-fasting where the bride and groom have their hands wrapped together thus the expression “tied the knot”.
- A symbolic meal as husband and wife. Typically cake of some sort of sweetened oat cake and a cup of ale they would share. We still see this today with the cake and where the couple feeds each other with that wedding cake and a toast of Champagne.
- The Presentation of Sword and Keys. The bride to be would present the husband to be with a sword indicating that he was to be the protector of the household and he in turn would provide her with a set of keys to the household to indicate that she was now in charge of the house.
- The “honey-moon” is the sharing of the Mead, a honey based ale shared for a month after the Viking wedding.
Special thanks to Reverend Kim Tavendale Ordained Minister and wedding Celebrant Cell-561-306-4382 Office- 720-432-1650 Email- kim@reverendkimtavendale.com p.o. box 20933, Boulder, Co. 80308 http://www.reverendkimtavendale.com/
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(hollyà) Good morning Kim thank you for coming to holly’s hot wedding tips how long have you been a reverend? (Kimà) I have been a reverend since 2009 so I’m coming on about 6 years now. (hollyà) Amazing! What inspired you to become a reverend? (Kimà) Well, I was asked by a friend by a friend of mine to perform their wedding and after thinking long and hard about it because something special is not something you want to mess up so I would want to do that. So I agreed to do that and then I realized that I actually enjoyed it and then I kind of ran out of friends to marry so I started to hit up strangers. Oh how fun! That’s how I because an officiant. (hollyà) That’s amazing! What are the best tips for brides and grooms that they really need to know. (Kimà) When selecting an officiant I think it’s really important that they connect with the person that’s going to marry them, it’s very important to find someone who shares your sense of humor, who really understands you and your relationship. Somebody who will make it personal to you. I also think that it’s very important to like the ceremony that they’re going to do, to include one of the things that you’d want in the ceremony.(hollyà) Makes perfect sense, because I know with certain religions if you don’t follow they’re rules you can’t have your ceremony, so I see a lot of brides and grooms recently opting to do their ceremony their way and then going back and having an official one later.(Kim à) Actually with a professional wedding officiant you don’t have to go back and do a legal one later. (Holly à) Oh not the legal the one for a church or a synagogue.(Kimà) I also find a lot of couples who can’t be married in a church, for example couples who’ve been divorced from a catholic church, come to me and unprofessional officiants and ask if they can incorporate a lot of their traditions and religious elements. And I’ve done a lot of catholic light wedding ceremonies. I’ve done a lot of inter faith weddings, where for example one partner is Jewish and the other is Christian, so combining elements of two religions is also another fun way. (Holly à) Right so that the families feel included and it feels like what they’re used to for their traditional weddings in their faiths in their beliefs. (Kim à) And in their chosen location. (holly à) How amazing is that? Great, what don’t couples know about officiants that they need to know? (Kim à) There is great difference in the type of officiants, you do get what you pay for, you can hire and officiant for very little money but you may not get a lot of say in what the officiant actually performs at the ceremony. They may just turn up and say whatever they like. Other professional officiants take their job very seriously, for instance I belong to a national association of wedding officiants. (Holly à) Really? There’s a national association. How fantastic. (Kim à) There is a professional association so we can share ideas, ask for help with research, and all sorts of other things. So professional officiants do vary greatly in their skill set and their ability to perform. Because you really are and (integral?) part of somebodies wedding day, and if you’re boring or you’re not engaged with the guests and the couple it can be a very long ceremony even if it’s only 10 minutes (Holly à) right that makes perfect sense to me. What questions should couples be asking that they don’t know to ask? (Kim à) I think they should ask if the officiant would let them edit the ceremony once they’re done. One of the things that I’ve heard from couples is that they’re very afraid that they aren’t going to like the end result or that they’re losing control of their ceremony. So a good officiant will allow the couple to have final say or at least look at the draft before the ceremony begins. So that’s a very good thing to be able to have editing is a very good thing to ask. To ask what the professional officiant will be wearing (Holly à) there’s a good question. (Kimà) Very interesting one if the couple wants me to wear a robe I give them the choice of the black or the white one, but I make my own stoles, that’s the little part that goes around the neck, so quite often I can color co-ordinate with a couples color scheme. So they can send me a bit of fabric and I can actually go down to Jo-anns and match it and sew one just for them. If I’m asked to wear street clothes for example then I try to wear basic black so that I’m not wearing a bright pattern or a bright color that will interfere or take the photos away in photographs. Because in the photos there about this much of the 3 of us so if I’m wearing something distracting then the attention comes away from their faces. (holly à) right because you want to see their faces they are the center of event. What’s your best piece of advice for couples planning their wedding? (Kim à) to stop once in a while, stop planning your wedding and just enjoy each other. Make sure to still date, don’t make every conversation about the wedding. I think it’s very easy to get caught up in all the to-do’s and must do’s, discussions about budgets and color schemes and that kills. So I think it’s really important to just stop and remember to be a couple and remember to be in love. (Holly à) oh fun that is a great suggestion because I know as it gets closer to the wedding it gets more insane and they lose time together. What is the most unusual wedding you’ve ever done? (Kim à) I would say that the most unusual wedding was also my most fun wedding. I was asked by a couple to do a wedding with a green color scheme a springd theme, Viking style, (Holly à) What is Viking style? (Kim à) in the manner of how Vikings used to get married, historically we carry a lot of the Vikings wedding traditions through (Holly à) What are the Viking wedding traditions? (Kim à) for instance one of the biggest ones is from king Alfred who decreed that no woman should get married against her will, in the british isles for example women were property you didn’t have a say, your father married you off. (Holly à) and that’s why your father escorted you down the isle and made sure the deal was sealed. (Kim à) exactly so it was the Vikings that introduced asking the woman if she took the man to be her husband. Vikings were very big on womans lips, then it was the Vikings tradition of handfasting that came through to the Europeans to where we get the expression tied the knot from. They would actually have their hands wrapped together so a lot of these traditions still survive in ways. (Holly à) what else? (Kim à) after the woman and man were married they would have a symbolic meal as husband and wife typicially cake, some sort of sweetened oat cake and a cup of ale and so they would share that and we still see this today with the cake and where the couple feeds each other with that wedding cake, that is from that tradition. But, of course there’s not a lot written about Viking weddings so I had to do a lot of research from some very dry historical papers. (Holly à) So did they have other Viking things of just the traditional wedding? (Kimà) not quite they had the nature theme the spring theme a green color scheme a request to wear some funky boots and then we had a presentation of a sorts. So in Viking tradition the bride to be would present the husband to be with a sword indicating that he was to be the protector of the household and he in turn would provide her with a set of keys to the household to indicate that she was now in charge of the house. The couple decided that the presentation of the sword was great but not the keys. So he did instead a presentation of the bouquet so each flower had a meaning and so his gift to the bride was every flower represented a thing that he loved about her. It was really really neat and then they had the handfasting with 7 different colors then we had the cakes ceremony to follow. It was very unusual but it was very much them and I’m very much looking forward to marrying the bride’s brother and his fiancée this year. (Holly à) How fun! You get to repeat those amazing traditions how great is that? What other odd traditions do you come across as a reverend? (Kim à) Well they’re only odd if you haven’t come across them before, but for a lot of couples things they bring from their countries and from their religion, from their cultures. So I’ve incorporated all sorts of traditions from coins to lasso’s, and swords (Holly à) Lassos? Which have lasso’s? (Kim à) I believe it was a Mexican tradition that the couple wanted to include so they had a lasso. Then there was of course jewish tradition of glasses, breaking glasses. And then a lot of couples want to include things that are representative of them, unity ceremonies are a great way for couples to incorporated their personalities and their interests. So I’ve done everything from an ice cream Sunday ceremony to fish tank ceremony. (Holly à) Fish tank ceremony? I’ve seen the ring fish out of fish eggs before but not a fish tank. (Kim à) Well it’s like a sand ceremony. So we had the fish tank on the table and one dad put in the gravel in the bottom and then both moms put in a little house and a little plant and then the other dad filled it up with water and then the bride and the groom put in the fish. It was absolutely adorable. Unity ceremonies, there are a lot of traditional ceremonies, the candle and sand. But there are a lot of really great ways to celebrate, I’ve had couples make signature cocktails. So there really is no limit just whatever you can imagine. Then we can always incorporate it. (Holly à) well excellent this is truly fascinating thank you Kim. (Kim à) it was my pleasure thank you for having me.