Handfasting

Your Officiant will say: The expression “tying the knot” refers to the traditional early Celtic marriage ritual of Handfasting. Handfasting, the ancient word for wedding, was traditionally recognized as a binding contract of marriage between a man and a woman before weddings became a legal function of the government or a papal responsibility of the church.

After the wedding vows and ring exchange, the couple’s hands are bound together with cords that are tied in a “love knot,” signifying the joining of their lives in a sacred union.

Handfasting is a symbolic ceremony to honor a couple’s desire for commitment to each other and to acknowledge that their lives and their destinies are now bound together.

{The Officiant addresses the couple}
Please hold each other’s hands, palms up with her hands resting in yours so you may see the blessing they are to you. This cord is a symbol of the life you have chosen to live together. Up until this moment you have been separate in thought, word and deed. But, as these cords are tied together, so shall your lives become intertwined. With this cord I bind you to the vows that you have made to one another. With this knot I tie you heart to heart, together as one.
{The Officiant wraps the cords loosely around the Bride’s and Groom’s hands and says} The knots of this binding are not bound by the cords, but rather by your own vows of love. For, as always, you hold in your own hands the making or breaking of this union.
May this cord always be a reminder of the binding together of two hands, two hearts and two souls into one. And so are you bound, each to the other, for all the days of your lives. {Cords are then removed and placed on the altar or given to the Best Man or Maid of Honor}