Deb & Peter’s Handfasting Ceremony

For those of you who brought us fruit trees as gifts, this is just to let you know that they have been planted and are going quite well.

The worm farms are chugging away producing a fine vintage of worm-wee which the plants are drinking up thirstily, and all the environmentally-friendly packaging and wrappings are putting much needed carbon back into the soil (via composting).

Thanks heaps to you all…..

Love & Lite,

Pete, Deb, Sophia, Jess & Maggie

OK, OK…. its taken me a few days to recover, but I have finally updated this site….

WE DID IT!! HUZZAH!

And what a wonderful day it was for everyone. The weather deities kept up their part of the bargain and gave us a wonderful rainless day; our friends and family that were stuck behind flood-waters in East Gippsland made it up at the eleventh hour; and there was enough food and drink to satisfy everyone’s tummies!

Thank you heaps to all our friends who came to both ceremony and feast; it meant so much to us that you came to share with us this day. And of course thank you to everyone that assisted in some way. It really was a communal effort, and for us that was one of the most important things: that our community would gather and help bring it all together, just like in old times where weddings/etc were seen as community events.

And thanks also to all of you re: gifts. We were so pleased to see that you all put so much thought into how your gifts would impact environmentally. There were so many inventive ways of wrapping gifts, and giving cards, it was truly inspiring. And we estimate that the carbon-footprint left behind by our event was minimal compared to most weddings.

We are still trying to bring the house back to a relative state of normalcy, but we’re pretty much there. It seems strange not to see the marquee in the back yard! We will be heading down to Bruthen for a break next week, so we’ll finally be able to let our hair down.

We’re meeting with Niki (photographer) tomorrow to check out her pics. I will endeavour to post some images up when we get them. If others have nice photos they’d like to share, let me know and we’ll work out how to post them up.

A few people also asked for a copy of the ceremony. I’ll get onto posting that up too.

So even though the event is over, there’s still a few things that can be done here.

Again, thanks all for coming. We are truly blessed to count you all as part of our circle.

Mitakuye oyasin,

Pete & Deb

Well its a far cry from the Talking Heads song.

But thanks to Denise Robinson from the Lakehouse in Daylesford, we shall find ourselves garlanded in the most beautiful and exquisite arrangements of fauna and whatnot.

We haven’t seen any of it yet, but she keeps repeating “Winter wonderland” over and over again. Lots of Yuletide kind of stuff like Holly, Ivy, etc as well as native bits and pieces.

And of course, the stark neutrality of the marquee will also be transformed to look like a homely pavilion…

So a huge thanks to Denise for lending her wonderful talents. I’m sure if you’re looking for a floral arrangement for your next do, you wouldn’t go wrong with getting her expertise!

We’ve had a few people ask us about what we want as gifts.

This is just a reminder that Steph has a list of suggestions, and she is willing, and able (and ready) for your call.

The details are on the wish-list page as well as on the invitation you received, but here’s her number: 0411830920. I don’t think she has voicemail, but you can leave your number so she can call you back.

See you on the day….

One important aspect to our Handfasting ceremony is of course the cord (or ribbon) with which our hands are bound together.

Handfastings were the ceremonies that most people did to get married, as weddings (as we know them) could only be held by the aristocracy and affluent merchant class. As they couldn’t afford rings, the ancient folk tradition of binding the hands together was incorporated into the ceremony, and this is where we get the phrase “tying the knot”.

Strangely enough, we found our cord on Ebay. Lauren in Wendouree makes and sells Handfasting Kits, which include the handmade and custom-made cord.

In keeping with the alchemical theme of our ceremony of two people/energies coming together to create a whole - wegot our cord made from the two colours we have chosen to represent us: green (Pete) and burgundy (Deb). These two colours wind around each other to form the cord which will be tied around our hands.

I am also attaching feathers at either end of the cord, each one representing aspects of each of us - I won’t reveal here which feathers I am using, but see if you can work out on the day which feather represents whom…

There has been a slight change in terms of the celebrant. Joanna unfortunately was unable to continue to be our priestess, due to personal reasons. So we needed to find someone with the right energy to facilitate this important ceremony for us. We eventually got on to Seline - those of you ensconced firmly in Melbourne’s Pagan scene may be familiar with her from her work at Gatherings such as Euphoria.  Seline is a legal celebrant, as well as a Priestess, so now she is going to be running the ceremony for us. However, we still have to say a big, warm thank-you to Livia, who did all the preliminary paperwork and was happy and flexible enough to work with us.

We will be keeping the ceremony brief, and it won’t be full of pagan terminology or rites that may be unknown or misunderstood by our friends and family - the focus is more on us performing something sacred with our community as witnesses to the fact that we are choosing to make a heart-felt commitment to each other. But we will be including a lot of symbolism in the ceremony, following the theme which I have written about so much. Again, see if you can spot the symbols and work out how it all applies…

The floors in the house have just been done, and they look fabtastic!

As soon as Deb gets some shots of it, I’ll post them up (before and after). They look stunning.  Its changed the whole vibe of the space.

We used Bio’s Teak oil. Its smells wonderful. All natural oils (no chemicals), and will protect the original boards well, and can be re-coated and added to without spoiling the ‘look’.

This was all courtesy of our mate Andy from Happy Floor Service. He’s honest, reliable, and does good work for a great price. I strongly recommend you get him and his Happy team if you need any floor-work done. Drop him an email at:

andybwkoh @ hotmail. com (remove the spaces, this is the anti-spam text version).

And in keeping with the whole eco-principle, he’s local! Admittedly, Bio is a Sth Australian  product, but at least its Green!