Asatru / Heathen Wedding Theme

The most important element of an Asatru wedding is the blessing of the bride with the hammer. Traditionally, the bride is seated, and after signing her with the hammer (making the sign of the hammer, an inverted”), the hammer is placed into her lap for a moment. This is done to assure fertility in the marriage.
A key part of the ceremony is to have the groom ceremonially give the bride a set of keys, which symbolize her receipt of responsibility for the home and finances of the family.

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Like almost all weddings, garb for the wedding party is an important part of the festivities. The bride will often wear a reconstructed Viking women’s dress with over-apron and twin turtle brooches, and the groom a tunic and trews. The bride often wears an amber necklace, representing Freyja’s tears, and the man wearing a token of his faith such as a thorrshammar or valknut pendant.
Like all Asatru ceremonies, the drinking horn is key part, with the couple sharing a draft of mead from the same horn. In ancient times, it was a sign of marriage or courtship for the couple to drink from the same vessel, and for the man and woman to feed each other choice bits from the same trencher or plate. Thus, they will usually follow the modern tradition of feeding each other a bit of bread or wedding cake to honour that ancient tradition as well. Mead is of course the traditional beverage for this occasion – to honour the ancient honeymoon tradition from which this derives.

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