The Personal Touch

What made our day so special was the personal touches, the decorations I made myself, the little things that bought our day together as a relaxed, joyful and fun filled day.

I had a lovely time making our invitations, creating our decorations, planning our day (which I’ve mentioned before in my “our reception” blog), my inner craft Queen had a fantastic time.

 

 

My Bouquet..

I had originally planned to not carry a bouquet as I had my lovely shawl and thought that was just enough, then we noticed there are some lovely roses at the supermarket and how about we grab a bunch and I tie them up with a pretty ribbon.

Of course we came to the day before the ceremony and no roses, no pretty bunches of flowers at all at the supermarket (I suppose I was being optimistic for early April/not exactly the optimum time for beautiful blooms).

My wonderful man then surprised me with a dozen white roses, just a simple bunch from the local florist, which I pulled together with kitchen twine, tied with a satin ribbon and pinned with florist pins. I cannot believe how great it looked. I then added my grandmothers pearls to bring it all together for a simple beautiful bouquet.

 

Beach Circle….

We wanted to sprinkle rose petals all over the beach in the circle around the Altar, however I could only see a waste of beautiful flowers, and a lot of beautiful flowers would be needed to fill the circle. I then found 1000 silk rose petals very cheap on eBay… didn’t think that through did I…. Can’t leave silk rose petals all over the beach, some small creature would surely be injured trying to eat them, and what a great finish to our ceremony that would be … “Ok guys, hope you enjoyed the ceremony, you now have to pick up the 1000 rose petals!”

Solution: Every Valentines Brett gives me a dozen lovely red roses, and I have dried and saved them all, I realised I had been saving them for a reason. We sprinkled all the lovely dried petals in the Altar circle along with chips of Rose Quartz “the love stone”, just perfect for our barefoot ceremony, walking on a bed of rose petals from my love.

 

Good Food, Good Wine, Good Friends

“To Cater or not To Cater”

The Penthouse was booked, The Beer Fridge was full, The “vast” Wine cellar stocked and the Champagne on ice, all that was left to organise was the food.

We thought about hiring a Caterer for our “reception”, but my man has an extremely simple palette, in other words “he’s a fussy little fecker”…so finding a caterer to do simple food was difficult. The “Observatory” Penthouse didn’t bode well for “roving roast”, and there was no way I was serving party pies and sausage rolls!.

By chance earlier in the year we had dinner in the restaurant below the “Observatory”, we noticed they had a takeaway menu, Voila we had a caterer… Posh hamburgers, chicken snitty burgers, pasta, fish n chips… Mains done! (I won’t mention the hamburger container fire that nearly went all bad.. Tip: don’t serve the hamburgers in their flip top containers when you table is covered in burning candles!!)

For the afternoon of drinks & nibbles, on the balcony of the Penthouse, I had simply made up some cheese platters, a platter of crusty fresh bread to dip in basil infused oil/caramelised balsamic & Dukka and some simple “bruschetta” sticks.

 

The Wedding Cake…

Dessert was another hurdle, my “fussy little fecker” only eats vanilla ice cream with strawberries, on a special night he’ll lash out and have pancakes with strawberries & banana… I was not spending the night cooking pancakes, and there was no way we were spending $$$ on a frothy “wedding” cake which no one would eat.

We had been out to dinner at one of our favourite local cafe’s, I splurged and had a dessert which I made the fussy one try…OMG he liked it.. New York Baked Cheesecake with Raspberry…and the cafe could order us one ready for the day.

I got a bit artistic and made some simple chocolate hearts and with the left over chocolate I wrote “love”, which I was sure would fall apart when I moved it to the cake, surprise it stayed all together.. Wedding cake DONE!

 

You played what game at your reception????

We have an easy going group of friends, and had bought along our “cards against humanity” game just in case. Of course they all wanted to play..terribly politically incorrect game. But a lot of fun with friends who like a laugh and don’t take each other too seriously..

We had a fantastic day and evening with our wonderful friends and family.. What is the saying “I couldn’t have done it better myself” Oh Wait…I did do it myself! And enjoyed every minute.

Our kind of Crazy..

I’ll leave you with a bit of silliness us girls thought up… You may have noticed my man has one of those things under his nose, you know 70’s Porn Star type moustache!!…and we never let him forget that it’s really really out of fashion..as a little joke we stumbled across some stick on moustaches in a party shop, just enough for all the girls.. It was gold, the photographer caught his expression as we turned around for the photo…priceless!! (Mind you it still didn’t shame him into removal of the hair!but we stay optimistic!)

The Ceremony

It was a beautiful beautiful day for our ceremony, a celebration of love in the wonder of Nature in all her glory. We were blessed with a beautiful sunny day, the perfect day for our celebration of love and natures elements.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank our photographer, Joanne Jones, she captured the joy and happiness of our day perfectly. All the photos I’ve used for my little blog are Joanne’s and I really cannot thank her enough for capturing how relaxed and encircled in love and happiness we felt during the day.

http://www.joannejonesphotography.com.au/

 

Remembering that we wanted our ceremony to be relaxed and simple as we don’t take ourselves to seriously. Our ceremony may not have followed a traditional Handfasting ceremony “religiously”, this is our interpretation of the ceremony, including what was important to us, a novice interpretation really.

 

Our very good friends Karen “priestess for a day” and her beautiful assistant/husband Martin. You made our day so special, we cannot thankyou enough for all the weeks of planning your were involved with. We are so blessed to have wonderful friends like you, blessed to have had you as part of our ceremony. Thankyou xx

Most of the elements used for our ceremony were from their online site: http://www.pagangifts.com.au

 

2nd April 2016, “Little Bay Beach” Port Macquarie, 3 pm
Our Guests were waiting for us in the natural circle of water & rocks. They had formed a circle around our Altar, as we walked onto the Beach our very good friend Martin played his “Tibetan singing bowl”, a beautiful harmonic sound to welcome us into the ceremony, a peaceful and joyful beginning.

 

“Singing bowls are traditionally used for meditation & yoga, played by striking the rim of the bowl with a mallet & then circling the bowls rim with the mallet to produce a continuous harmonic ‘singing’ sound”
Following tradition we arrived at the Eastern side of the circle our friends had formed, and then proceeded around the outside of the circle in a clockwise direction to then enter the circle from the East. An important part of the ceremony being that we held hands at all times. (You may notice on my left shoulder I have a henna tattoo, this was done by a very talented local girl and is a Gaelic love knot, “with love always”)

 

The Brass Altar Bell was rung thrice to signal the start of the ceremony.

Our very good friend Karen “Priestess for a day” raised her arms to the sky and says:

In this sacred circle of light we gather in perfect love and perfect trust,
O God & Goddess of divine love, I ask thee to bless this couple,
their love, and their commitment, for as long as they shall live in love together.
May they each enjoy a healthy life filled with joy, love and happiness.

 

Air – facing East

Whilst “smudging” the couple with incense the priestess invokes the element of Air:

I all upon the spirits of the Air,

with your clever fingers tie closely the bonds between Ann & Brett

(My darling Brett thought “smudging” meant Karen would be putting charcoal “smudges” on our faces.. Bless his heart!)

Water – facing South

As the priestess sprinkles us with ocean water from the chalice she invokes the elements of water:

I call upon the spirits of Water
To cleanse, purify and carry
Ann & Brett’s love

Earth – facing West

Holding our right hands over the dish containing black salt and invokes the elements of Earth:

I call upon the spirit of Earth,
Let your strength and fortitude be theirs
May they always stay grounded
For so long as they desire to remain together

Fire – facing North

Lighting each of our candles the priestess holds her wand above the flames and invokes the element of Fire:

I call upon the spirits of Fire,
give Ann & Brett love, passion,
warmth and new beginnings.

We then light the centre candle from our two candles.

(Unfortunately there was a slight breeze on the day and our candles wouldn’t light.. Not to be deterred we laughed at our efforts as we had a back up plan, and decided to complete this part of the ceremony later at our Altar at our reception)

 

Spirit – Moving back to face the East the priestess invokes the elements of spirit:

The circle is now cast in protection, love & light
we have now called upon the spirits of the elements
for us all to become one in this celebration of love

 

At this time we say together:

We have come of our own free will
In perfect love an perfect trust

Ring exchange:

 

Having been blessed with the element of fire whilst bound to the priestess wand, the rings are now exchanged whilst we say our chosen vows together:

I will trust and respect you,
laugh with you and cry with you,
Loving you faithfully through good times and bad.
I give you my hand, my heart and my love,
From this day forward for all of our days.
May the God & Goddess give me strength to keep these vows

With my whole heart for my whole life

 Drink from Chalice:

The chalice normally contains a herbal brew from elements symbolising love and commitment (however as my beloved is a little bit “lot!” fussy we had plain tap water).

We drank separately from our own goblet and then each holding our goblet so the other may drink, the priestess explained the meaning behind this tradition:

Ann & Brett drink separately from their own goblet
Then holds the goblet for the other to drink.

this symbolises the need for balance between
Independence & unity in their future together

Tying the knot

Facing each other with our hands forming the circle of infinity (left to right, right to left, a circle of 8)

Our priestess ties our hands as we say together:

Upon this day, our hands we bind,
A symbol of our heats entwined.
To witness this, we ask of thee,
Our union forever blessed be”

Priestess:

Be understanding and patient with each other,
be free and giving of affection and warmth,
For the God and goddess are with you now and always.

I turn to you, the friends and family of Ann & Brett

and ask whether you will support the couple in their relationship together?

Our friend and family kindly said YES

 

I now pronounce you bound!
Blessed Goddess and laughing God
For Ann & Brett we ask for your love and protection

Blessed Be

May the peace of the old ones go I our hearts.

Blessed Be

the Altar bell is rung thrice to symbolise the end of the ceremony

“So mote it be”

Our Altar

We chose Little Bay Beach for our ceremony as it has a natural circle surrounded by the five elements, which we invoked during the ceremony.

 
Our Altar stood in the centre of the circle, which was consecrated with salt water and purifying incense (frankincense, sage, sandlewood).

 
Upon our Altar we had the symbols of the elements which were used during the ceremony.

Earth – represented by my brass Tibetan bowl containing black witch salt
Air – represented by a smudging stick
Water – represented by a marble chalice containing water from the ocean
Fire – represented by 3 candles, one for each of us to use to light the centre candle together.
 Spirit – represented by our friends and family who encircled us during the ceremony.

I had decorated the centre candle with some of the rose petals I had used for the spell vials we gave our guests, tied around the candle was a pentagram.

 
The pentagram was also on the altar cloth over our table. The pentagram is a five pointed star and a symbol of protection. Each point represents the five elements called on during our ceremony, Earth, Air, Water, Fire & Spirit. The star as a whole symbolises the spirit bringing the elements into natural harmony.

 
Our Altar also contained:
Altar Bell – which was rung thrice to mark the beginning and the end of the ceremony.

Water bottle and goblets – etched with a pentagram, used for drinking from the chalice part of ceremony, were we drank  separately and then from each other cup to symbolise the balance between independence and unity in our relationship.

 

Crystal wand – with our rings bound with ribbon

 

 

Our Handfasting Ribbon

On a the night of a full moon, whilst chanting a spell of love and happiness, I wove our Handfasting bind.

 

Our handfasting bind was made in the tradition of Celtic Handfasting, using ribbons of 13 different colours, each colour having its own special meaning, each ribbon 3 metres long.
I strongly believe I was guided by the Gods & Goddess during my weaving as the randomly chosen “centre” ribbon ended up being Black – which represents Strength & Wisdom.
I had placed the ribbons across our dining table to plan my weave.

I chose to weave 4 ties of 3 ribbons each, resulting in 1 ribbon surplus. I then planned to weave the 4 ties together interwoven with the 1 surplus ribbon.

I simply cannot believe the “centre” ribbon, which was interwoven to hold all the other weaves together, was Black for Strength & Wisdom, clearly I was being guided by the powers that be.

I also wove into the bind hearts & pentagrams. The meaning of each colour is:

Red: Passion
Orange: Kindness
Yellow: Joy
Green: Health
Blue: Tranquility & Sincerity
Purple: Sentimentality
Black: Strength & Wisdom
White: Peace & Meditation
Grey: Balance
Pink: Romance & Happiness
Brown: Earth & Home
Silver: Creativity & Values
Gold: Energy & Intelligence

These are also the colours I used for the ties around each of the spell vials I made our guests.

My Beautiful “Piano Shawl”

Our beach ceremony was planned to be relaxed & casual, and of course barefoot to ensure we were connected to nature during the ceremony.

At first we were going to simply wear clothes we already had in our closets as we were having family photos taken we went with a theme of beach colours, white, blue & taupe.

The boys were all sorted with something they already owned. The girls all found lovely maxi skirts and dressess.. All that was left was for me to decide on my outfit!

I had a lovely “boho” style white skirt, all I needed was a nice top and perhaps a light “boho” style jacket. Being a “buxom lass” it’s not that easy, nearly impossible when you are shopping with something in mind (you never find it!).

In the end I found a simple white maxi dress for under $100, (OMG for a buxom beauty like me that was like winning the lottery)..

If you are a buxom beauty like me City Chic is the place to go girls: http://www.citychic.com.au/

All I needed now was a nice little “boho” style fringed jacket… I found the perfect one on an online shop, but after ordering I received an email that it was out of stock…with only weeks to go I thought I had run out of options.

As a last resort I searched for “fringed”…and up came “Fringed Piano Shawls”…oh so beautiful, embroidered, fringed and just perfect (and in the end the most expensive part of my day..but it was beautiful)

I resisted the urge to splurge!… (The most expensive one I found was from Paris and the bidding was at $6,000…way way outside my budget)…but persevere I did and found this lovely hand embroidered shawl (purported to be over 100 years old) for well within my modest budget.

“A piano shawl is a large square or rectangular piece of fabric that is used to decorate the top surface of a grand piano. It serves the practical purpose of protecting the piano from nicks, scratches, and the elements. However, many such shawls are quite elaborate and also serve as decoration. 

Piano shawls are very often heavily embroidered with bold colors and patterns. The patterns often incorporate flowers or nature scenes. It is also quite common for them to be edged in long fringe. Not only does the fringe look exquisite, but it also helps to drape the shawl evenly over the piano. 

Piano shawls are generally made of thick silk. This fabric glides naturally onto the surface of a piano and is kept in place by its natural weight as well as the weight of the embroidery. They became quite popular in the Victorian era when having a piano in one’s parlor was considered to be at the height of sophistication. 

In addition to serving as a decoration, the piano shawl has also been incorporated into women’s fashion. Just as a shawl drapes beautifully on a baby grand, it hangs exquisitely on a woman’s body.”

 

 

I have it draped over our bed now, it was just perfect, beautifully embroidered birds and flowers.

 

 

 

Researching the Ceremony

After researching over many weeks, using a number of very “reliable” sites (Wikipedia, Pinterest and such), I then decided I should actually look for a legitimate source of information with regard to Handfasting rituals.

Keeping in mind we do not take ourselves too seriously and wanted our guests to be comfortable and enjoy the day, celebrating our commitment in a relaxed and simple ceremony.

This is my interpretation of a Handfasting ritual, a novice interpretation only.

As part of our invitations’, which I made myself, we included a guide explaining our ceremony so our guests knew what to expect.

We also included a Rose Quartz “palm stone” for each guest, we explained the meaning of this in our information guide”,  which I’ve copied below.

What is a Handfasting ritual you ask?

“Handfasting” is the joining of a couples hands, an ancient symbol of union between two people. It is from this custom we get the expression “tying the knot”.

Brett & I are pledging our love & commitment to each other in an informal ceremony, a self-uniting Gaelic/pagan ceremony, normally conducted by a Wiccan priest or priestess, Karen has kindly offered to be our “priestess for a day”.

Don’t be afraid there will be no naked frolicking, chanting or sacrificing of small animals. There will be a little spell or two to honour our “wicked ways” (spell check “Wiccan ways”).

We hope to have a relaxed, casual & simple celebration, with our closest friends and our children. A celebration of the joining of our two families.

A Handfasting ceremony is usually celebrated outdoors in a circle, a ritual of life and love. This is why we have chosen Little Bay Beach, which has a natural circle surrounded by the five elements which we will call on during the ceremony:

The five elements invoked are simply:
Earth – for physicality, stability & growth
Air – for intellect, ideas, freedom, imagination & discovery
Water – for emotions, love, dreams
Fire – for passion, desire, imagination, intuition
Spirit – the mystical & magical force which surrounds us

What do the Pink Stones enclosed represent?

They are Rose Quartz “Palm stones”, rose quartz is commonly known as the “love crystal”. We would love you to hold your “Palm Stone” during our ceremony. The stones will generate a vibration of love for our ceremony and for you.

At the reception we ask that you write a message, or simply a word, on the stone and leave it with us, infused with your love, as a memory of you being with us on this special day.

During the ceremony you will hear the phrase “blessed be”, you can choose to respond by repeating “blessed be” if you wish.

As our closest friends and our children you will be asked during the ceremony whether you will support us in our relationship?…It would be more then lovely if you choose to reply yes.

Where will we be dancing naked you ask? (Oh wait we said we weren’t doing that didn’t we… Miners Beach is out then!)

Our desired place of worship is ‘little bay” beach at the Lighthouse, the small beach to the North East of the Lighthouse. Karen & her lovely assistant Martin will be there to greet you and will ask that you complete a circle in the consecrated area for the ceremony.

Love and Blessings

Ann & Brett

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This photo is taken from the headland looking down at “little bay”, you can see our friends waiting for us to arrive, some cooling off in the water. It was a beautiful beautiful day for our celebration in the wonder of Nature in all her glory.

 

Here we are arriving, Port Macquarie Lighthouse is in the background.

We live in the most beautiful place on Earth.

I do hope you are enjoying my posts xx

 

 

Our Reception

2nd April 2016

After months of planning the day for our ceremony had arrived. A beautiful sunny autumn day in our home town of Port Macquarie (on the East Coast of Australia).

This is the view from our penthouse suite at the Observatory Hotel, overlooking the beautiful Pacific Ocean. How lucky we are to live in this beautiful part of the world.

Even though we have the perfect home for entertaining I found a fantastic two night deal for the penthouse at the Observatory and decided it would make a wonderful venue for our small party after the ceremony.

We spent the previous day decorating for our intimate reception.

All the decorations having come from our home or made by me, having discovered the wonders of a glue gun and digging my sewing machine out of retirement  (I channelled my inner craft Queen and have now been banned from Pinterest). The family were very afraid to sit still for too long or they may have found themselves covered in dried roses or something lacy. I had a wonderful time, making all the decorations myself made the day so special.

Our  reception table:

The crochet placemats are from a set of six made lovingly by my late Grandmother. As we only had six and our reception was for 12 guests we used one for every 2nd setting, with 12 hessian placemats from home for each setting.

The “celtic love knot” napkin rings were made by me from simple kitchen twine, the rosemary was from our garden.

The Beautiful roses are made from “birchwood” wood shavings, a pretty and cost effective alternative to fresh flowers (my inner craft Queen did not extend to something so beautiful, these I bought from eBay)

The centre table runner I made from sewing old crochet doilies together. These are over a hessian table runner I bought on eBay.

Our “placecard” quotes:

I made “hearts”from paper doilies and brown paper sandwich bags. I printed and attached  quotes that we liked and that expressed our feelings and sense of humour. Our friends read these out over dinner and I saved them to decorate our photo album.

Some of the Quotes used:

“The best things in life are the people we love, the places we’ve been and the memories we’ve made along the way”

“We didn’t realise we were making memories, we just knew we were having fun”

“I knew when I met you an adventure was going to happen”

“It seemed they had always been, and would always be, friends. Time could change much but not that”

“It doesn’t matter who likes us…we like us”

“The best wine is the one you drink with friends”

“Friendship is about finding people who are your kind of crazy”

“Your friendship is a special gift, generously given, happily accepted, and deeply appreciated”

“True friends are like diamonds – bright, beautiful, valuable, and always in style”

“Friends are therapists you can drink with…”

“We’ve been friends for so long we can’t remember which of us was the bad influence”

“Strangers think I’m quiet, my friends think I’m outgoing, my best friends know that I’m completely insane”

“You don’t have to be crazy to be my friend, but it helps”

“Laughing makes everything easier, funnier and happier, especially when you do it with your best friends”

The window “garlands” I simply made from cutting hearts out of pages of an old book, brown paper sandwich bags and paper doilies. These were simply sewn together into garlands and hung around the room.

 

Our Altar” sign beautifully made by our very good friend using the verse from our invitations and our vows.

Under a full moon I made small vials of a love spell for each of our friends and family “a little bit of magic, a little bit of love, wishes for health & happiness”

The gods had blessed us with beautiful weather, we had a wonderful day.

Next instalment the ceremony.

xx

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our Gaelic Handfasting Ceremony

What started as a simple family photo day with our children quickly became a Gaelic Handfasting Ceremony with our family and closest friends.

Brett and I have been “living in sin” (OMG) for over 4 years, between us we have 4 children, 3 teenage girls who still live at home with us, and my married son who lives with his wife and two beautiful children. With the youngest grandbaby now 6 months old we decided to arrange some family photos at one of our beautiful local beaches.

Late last year we had designed “commitment rings” for each other with no intention of ever participating in the frothy ceremony people call “marriage”. You see we have both “been there and done that”, even though we both took our marriage vows very seriously, clearly our ex-spouses did not have the same moral compass.

We felt our commitment to each other didn’t need anything formal. We have a loving, happy and spiritual commitment to each other and our family.

Even though we were happy with our form of informal commitment our friends lamented not being able to celebrate a wedding with us. So we decided to have a dinner party in the new year instead.

During this time my friend Karen mentioned she has been thinking of becoming a celebrant, as more and more people were turning to the ancient Gaelic ceremony called “handfasting” as an alternative to a formal wedding. I started to research the ceremony and realised it was exactly what Brett & I wanted. (The term “tying the knot” comes from this ceremony as you literally “tie the knot)

A small spiritual ceremony. A ceremony to join our family in love, kindness and spirit. Celebrating the ancient wiccan elements, Earth, Wind, Fire, Water & Spirit.

We gladly offered to be her “Guinea pigs” and agreed for her to practice an informal ceremony with us. We invited our closest friends and planned a small ceremony for April 2nd 2016.

The planning began.