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Wedding Planning


| THEME WEDDINGS St Patricks Day
Theme Weddings: St. Patrick's Day
Irish wedding traditions | Irish wedding songs

Wearing Green - Gowns & Dresses

 Green Weddings | Garden Weddings



Traditions, customs and fun in planning Irish weddings


by Shelley Waugh
You don't have to be Irish to plan a wedding on Saint Patrick's Day - but if you or a member of your wedding party are it adds more meaning to 'the luck of the Irish' theme to celebrate on your wedding day.

Once you've set the date and place for your ceremony the next step is the reception location, then the wedding planning starts.
 
There are several Irish wedding traditions that you can apply or customize in your planning. Search the Internet for Irish wedding websites that sell items, and offer ideas from the pre-wedding parties to the honeymoon.

One of the first things is to establish your color scheme. the obvious is white and green. There are several shades of both, therefore, once you set the colors, use them throughout your wedding planning.

Bride's gown & flowers 
Wear a white gown. Irish legend has it that fairies love beautiful things and one of their favorites is a bride and many brides being spirited away by the little people. For this reason, it's bad luck for a bride to wear green. Bridesmaids may wear green gowns or dresses (the fairies don't look at them).

Traditionally Irish brides wore a wreath of wildflowers in their hair and they also carried them in bouquets. Florists today are also including Bells of Ireland. In Wales, brides carried live myrtle and gave a sprig to each bridesmaid which they planted. If it grew, the bridesmaid would marry within the year.

For more Irish tradition, the Celtic Charm Garter, pictured, features the Celtic Trinity Knot that is attached with an olive and green ribbon. The garter also sports a delicate embroidered Irish lace bottom. $29.98 Cad. topped with a single crystal. www.itsallweddings.com

Groom's attire
If the groom and groomsmen are wearing tuxedos they can add a green vest, bow tie and buttonhole flowers for their boutonnière's. The same goes with a suit.

Choosing a Venue
Your ceremony and reception venues may be the same place or two separate locations. For a St. Patrick’s Day wedding you may want to choose an older church or even have an outdoor wedding ceremony and reception so that you may use a Maypole that you can decorate with white and green ribbons coming down from the top of the pole. Ideal fun for children at the wedding who grab the ribbons and dance around in a circle around the pole. Good for pictures, especially if it's an outdoor wedding reception.

Invitations
Use white or cream-color paper invitations and a Celtic knot cross with celtic love knots on each corner with emerald green writing and remember to keep the same color of green constant throughout the entire wedding. For the programs use the same style as the invitations: the white paper, Celtic Knot cross, and green writing.

Irish Rings
Claddagh rings, left, can be used instead of the traditional wedding rings. The Claddagh ring (Irish: fáinne Chladaigh) is a traditional Irish ring given as a token of love or worn as a wedding ring. The design and customs associated with it originated in the Irish fishing village of Claddagh, located just outside the city of Galway. The ring was first produced in the 17th century during the reign of Queen Mary II, though elements of the design are much older.
  The Claddagh's distinctive design features two hands clasping a heart, and usually surmounted by a crown. The elements of this symbol are often said to correspond to the qualities of love (the heart), friendship (the hands), and loyalty (the crown). The expression which was associated with these symbols in the giving of the ring was: "With my two hands I give you my heart, and crown it with my loyalty." Yet, the expression, "Let love and friendship reign forever" can be found as another meaning for the symbols. The ring worn on the left hand with the heart facing outward shows the wearer is engaged; turned inward indicates the wearer is married
Source: en.wikipedia.org

CEREMONY
Hire Celtic musicians for the ceremony or a bagpiper to announce you. Use songs from Lord of the Dance or Riverdance or other traditional Irish folk songs instead of "Here Comes the Bride." Some use the Christian hymn Saint Patrick's Breastplate in their ceremony.
  Irish dancers can hand out your programs before the ceremony dressed in their full regalia and also dance at the reception later.

Unity Candle
The Celtic Charm unity candle, right, features a traditional Irish Wedding Blessing, "may your hands be forever blessed in friendship and your hearts joined forever in love", framed with green, white and olive ribbon. The Celtic Trinity Knot is also displayed below the saying. The lighting candles complement the unity candle with white lace and green and olive ribbon topped with a single crystal. Size: 8cm x 23cm H $59.98 Cad. www.itsallweddings.com

Readings: that can in your program
Irish wedding vows:
By the power that Christ brought from heaven, mayst thou love me.
As the sun follows its course, mayst thou follow me.
As light to the eye, as bread to the hungry, as joy to the heart,
may thy presence be with me, oh one that I love,
'til death comes to part us asunder.

An old Irish proverb:
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.

RECEPTION
Hire Celtic musicians for the entrance and a "Blarney Stone" in the lobby for people to kiss. A bagpiper can announce your entrance. Use traditional or contemporary Irish folk songs instead of "Here Comes the Bride."

Food
Whether you are having a meal or just appetizers you'll want some Irish foods such as traditional Corned Beef Brisket or Corned Beef and Cabbage or Mixed Vegetables. Use Pesto Sauce to add green to the menu.

Centrepieces & Decorations
Name the tables after Irish places and things, i.e., ireland, Dublin, Shamrock, St. Patrick, etc. For centrepieces, terra-cotta pots, painted white or green filled with shamrocks and some wild flowers in them make centrepieces. You can buy green and white small shamrock-shaped confetti and white rose petals to spread around the tops of the tables. There are also several Claddaugh symbol ideas on the market and online.

To decorate the reception area, an idea is to use lots of greenery, ferns, and wildflowers mixed in with green trees strung with white lights. Candles (be sure that you light only the ones you can control on tables) are also very popular with the Irish theme of white and green with accents of different color ribbons (yellow, purple) can be run throughout the greenery.

Favors
Use green and white covered candy almonds. Four-leaf clovers or fortune cookies, rights, can be bought online that include a small message of good luck. Small plant pots can be filled with gold-foiled chocolate candies and setting them at each guests seat as their very own pot of gold. Airplane sized bottles of irish beverages all tied up with green bows. For more cookie ideas visit www.ediblegiftsplus.com.

Music
Most Irish Wedding Songs may be found at the Celtic Music Website. Consult with your musician for your event to ensure they are familiar with Irish music.

First Dance
Select a Irish dance for your bridal waltz or go for Michael Flatley's Lord of the Dance!

Entertainment
Hire Celtic musicians, Irish step dancers are lots of fun especially when they offer to give guests a Celtic dance lessons. A harpist is good background music while dining. Play traditional songs like Danny Boy, Sweet Rosie O'Grady, and When Irish Eyes Are Smiling. Have fun and don’t forget to do the Irish Jig at the end of your reception

Irish Toast in Gaelic
Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig
May the roof above us never fall in.
And may the friends gathered below it never fall out.
May the saddest day of your future be now worse than the happiest day of your past.
May you have warm words on a cold evening, a full moon on a dark night, and the road downhill all the way to your door.
May you live as long as you want, and never want as long as you live.

For more Gaelic sayings visit irish.spike-jamie.com

Drinks
Bunratty Meade is a honey wine from a recipe based on the oldest drink in Ireland. In the old days, it was consumed at weddings because it was thought that it promoted virility. Couples also drank it from special goblets for a full month following the wedding, which is supposedly where we get the word honeymoon. This was to protect the couple from the fairies coming to spirit the bride away.
  Make a Signature drink for your event (see the Signature drink section on the Main Menu).
  Serve Irish beverages such as Guinness beer, Baileys Irish Cream, Jameson's Irish Whiskey, Barry's Irish Tea, etc.

Wedding Cake
Your white and green theme can carry through to your cake with toppers, embroidery or trim. In Ireland, a wedding custom is to have fruit cake as your wedding cake, if this is not your liking, a fruit cake can be the Groom's cake (if he likes fruit cake).

Another Irish custom is that the top tier of your wedding cake be an Irish whiskey cake which is saved for the christening of your first baby, and a bottle of champagne is saved from the reception so that it can be used to 'wet the baby's head' at the Christening.

The Irish Wedding Song by Ian Betteridge is very popular at contemporary Irish weddings and often sung while the newlyweds cut the cake. The lyrics can be in the program or typed up and placed on the tables so that everyone could join in. For the words click here. Sheet music is also available at www.sheetmusicplus.com

Transportation
Coachman in a carriage is perfect especially if he is Irish or white limousines that can have green trim (if allowed).

Source: Files from The Traditional Irish Wedding by Bridget Haggerty, a Mother of an Irish Bride, pictured right.


www.WeddingsHoneymoons.com | Irish Weddings | March 12, 2011
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