As St. Patricks Day approaches it made me think about all of the great Irish Wedding Traditions you can incorporate in to your wedding. An easy way to incorporate Irish traditions is to include Irish proverbs and scripture in to the wedding ceremony. One of my favorite Irish Proverbs states: “Don’t walk in front of me, I may not follow. Don’t walk behind me, I may not lead. Walk beside me and just be my friend.”
Below are some other Irish wedding traditions that you can have in your wedding!
Magic Handkerchief
In Irish tradition, a bride will carry or wear a handkerchief on her wedding day. After her first child is born, she will sew that handkerchief into a baby’s bonnet. It is hoped that if the baby is a girl, she will take the stitches out when it’s her turn to get married and carry the same handkerchief down the aisle thus repeating the process and creating a wonderful heirloom.
Blue Wedding Dress
Even though we think of the color green for St. Patrick’s Day a bride would actually wear blue to symbolize purity.
Handfasting
In olden days the priest or minister would wrap the clasped hands in the end of his stole to symbolize the trinity of marriage; man and woman joined by God. With God’s grace in time another trinity would be manifest; mother, father and child.
Wildflowers and Braids for Hair
Many brides wore wreaths of wildflowers and braids in their hair or bouquet for luck. A sprig shamrock in bouquet was token of good luck. One tradition suggests giving each girl myrtle to carry and telling them to plant in after the wedding. If it grows, the myth says she’ll get hitched within a year!
Horseshoe
Traditionally Irish brides used to carry a real horseshoe for good luck. (Turned up so the luck won’t run out). These days brides will either wear a horseshoe stitched in to their dress or wear jewelry with a horseshoe on it.
Irish Wedding Coin
Traditionally the groom would present his bride with a coin of silver and would say “I give this to you as a symbol of all I posses.” The coin represents sharing everything with his bride and is passed down from generation to generation.
Which Irish wedding tradition is your favorite? Would you include any of these into your wedding?
We want to know!
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
hey. you have a pretty good post there mate.