A Pirate Passion Wedding
Welcome
Welcome to all of you sea dogs, wenches, knaves and maidens!
I do be the Pirate Capt’n Bowen, and I have the duty today to marry me 1st mate, Name, of the Western Sea Hag, to his long time lady love, the Lady Name. About time too, as he has sired to fine laddies on her...
(Optional)
As we begin- we must honor the gods and especially Freya- the goddess of love and family, and Odin, the god of all outlaws, such as we be.
Name- take a deep drink of the mead horn and perform the blut honor the gods and the 4 winds that carry us to fine ships full of plunder and gold!
(Name drinks from the horn, turns in a circle, stopping north, east, south and west, spitting mead at each stop)
(Optional)
Please take a moment to silence and put away your “sea phones”. The Lady Name and me mate Name have requested you sit back, relax, and be fully present with them as they commit themselves to each other. Thank you so much for your understanding.
(Optional)
This is also an opportunity to remember those who are not with us today, either through reasons of their own, or because they have traveled down the corridors of time with out us. Let’s take just a moment and reminisce on the memories that you have with those special and wonderful people who have been a treasured part of your lives. But this isn’t a time to be full of sorrow, think on those times that you have shared a meal, an adult beverage, a laugh or even a wench!. They may not be here with us today, but we always carry them in our hearts, and their gold in our pockets!
Introduction
(Optional)
Now, it do be the time to ask, so we can go straight to the mead and meat, do there be any one, that feels that this honorable woman, who we know sires sons, should not take Name as her husband? He do be a good da to his boys, a fine first mate, and a man who can hold his grog…
(bridal party glowers at the guests)
Non? Not one? Very well then, let us be on with this marriage ceremony, as our mead warms and our meat become cold..
We have gathered here on this beautiful day to celebrate the creation of a new marriage. In marriage, two individuals unite your lives, your destinies, your loves into one. You are vowing to nourish each other in spirit, mind, and body. Marriage is an honorable bond; it is a privilege to be entered into the holy state of matrimony. You set each other free to fully be yourselves, and your devotion to one another should bestow upon you more courage to face all the difficulties life brings, be it the British Navy or the wenches at Tortuga..
Charge to the Couple
As you have joined hands with your love, listen to that which I am about to say.
Above you are the stars and below you are the stones, as time passes, remember… Like a stone should your love be firm like a star should your love be constant. Let the powers of the mind and of the intellect guide you in your marriage, let the strength of your wills bind you together, let the power of love and desire make you happy, and the strength of your dedication make you inseparable. Be close, but not too close. Possess one another yet be understanding. Have patience and grace with one another, for storms will come, but they will pass quickly. Be free in giving affection and warmth. Have no fear and let not the ways of the unenlightened give you unease, for the Gods are with you always.
As free people of the seas, we do be blessed with so many different abilities but the most amazing one is our ability to love unconditionally, well that and to raid the Spanish for their gold! This is the very best part of who we are despite everything that makes us all so different and unique.... love and gold is what we all share. No matter who we are, where we've come from, what we believe, we know this one thing to be true: Love is the only thing that matters. Not stuff, or how much gold we do be hoarded at the end of the day, and of this life it’s all about the love and the gold. Never forget about the gold. It’s the source of everything we’re doing right and the closest thing to Valhalla, Heaven or even Davey Jones Locker, we do be on this side of ever after in the right here and now, and marriage, when done right, is being in love for the rest of your life.
We have so many words that define love, but maybe those which are spoken in many wedding ceremonies regardless of your religion or beliefs, are as true today as the day they were written. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not disrespect loved ones, nor is it selfish, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs nor holds a grudge. Love does not delight in the bad things of this world, but it rejoices at the beauty of it and with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always triumphs. Love will never fail you.
Vows
You fell in love by chance, but you're here today because you're making a choice. You both are choosing each other. You've chosen to be with someone who enhances you, who makes you think, makes you smile, and makes every day brighter. You're about to make promises to each other that you intend to keep. You're going to vow to take care of each other, to stand up for one another, and find happiness in the other. There's a simple premise to each of these promises: you're vowing to be there. You're teaming up and saying to the other, "Every experience, every adventure, be it land or sea, I am going to have, along with your gold!”
Lady Name and Mate Name, before you say those words that you have been waiting to say. Again, look down, see those hands that are holding yours, feel the warmth, and those sweaty palms. As you hold each other’s hands, may you see the gift that they are to you. These are the hands that are holding yours on your wedding day as you promise to love each other today, tomorrow, and forever. These are the hands that will countless times wipe tears from your eyes, tears of joy and sorrow. These are the hands that will passionately love you and cherish you through the years. These are the hands that will help hold your family together as one as you overcome the Spaniards and the British Navies. These do be the hands that will give you strength when you need it and the hands that will work alongside yours as together you build your future.
Will you, Lady Name and Name be each other's raiding partners from this day forward? Will you bring out the best in one another, share your happiest moments together, and your hoard, love each other absolutely — for the rest of this lifetime and for whatever may come next?
Lady Name and Name
We will.
Lady Name will you have 1st Mate of the Western Sea Hag, Name as your husband, in times of good fortune as well as bad, forsaking all others to be a kind and faithful wife?
Name
I do
Will you base your life with Name on love, caring, and understanding? Will you embrace who he is for what he is, and be considerate of his wishes and desires?
Name
I do
Do you promise to look the other way in Tortuga or even Nassau when the wenches try to get Name to slip them some of his rum or gold?
Do you lastly promise to never share the location of his gold no matter what the British do?
Name
I do
Now repeat after me-
Name, today I take you to be my husband. Together we will create a home, becoming a part of one another. I vow to help you create new destiny, that we can cherish, inspiring your love for me and mine for you. I vow to be honest, caring and truthful, to love you as you are and not as I want you to be, and to grow old by your side as your lady love.
Now, me Mate it’s your turn.
Name, will you have this beautiful wench, the Lady Name as your wife, in times of good fortune as well as bad, forsaking all others to be a kind and faithful husband?
Name
I do
Will you base your life with the Lady Name on love, caring, and understanding? Will you embrace her adventurous spirit and be considerate of her wishes and desires?
Name
I do
Will you Name promise to forgive the Lady Name, for being, as you said one night in your cups, was a wicked and evil old and an ungrateful wench you, who just wanted your gold and rum, not what you have in your breeches, as we were wetting our lips at the Dock Rat in the Indies?
Oh, I wasn’t supposed to say that? Anyhow, you dog, do you promise to tell her she is beautiful and your one true love even if she is ill or in her cups?
Name
I will
Now repeat after me, my lady love Name, today I take you to be my wife. Together we will create a home, becoming a part of one another. I vow to help create a dynasty that we can cherish, inspiring your love for me and mine for you. I vow to be honest, caring and truthful, to love you as you are and not as I want you to be, and to grow old by your side as your lord and love.
Will you, Lady Name and Name do be each other's partners from this day forward? Will you bring out the best in one another, share your happiest moments together, and love each other absolutely — for the rest of this lifetime and for whatever may come next?
Lady Name and Name
We will.
Rings
By the exchange of these tokens of your love for one another, so are your lives interlaced. What one experiences, so shall the other; as honesty and love build, so will your bond strengthen and grow. The Circle is a perfect figure, without beginning, without end, with no area of weakness. It is a symbol of the Cycle of Life, of birth, death, and rebirth. This shall serve as a physical reminder of your vow, and that all things begin and end and begin again, as the Gods so decree. These rings shall serve to remind you that life goes on, that these moments pass. When you are engulfed in anger or in sadness, look to your hand, and remember that the Wheel turns forever onward, and it is love that turns the Wheel.
Onto each other’s hand you now place a ring, the circlet symbolizing the wheel of life that turns ever onward. There is a lesson in both the hand and the wedding ring. The circle itself is all-encompassing and inclusive. Your hand opens to receive and to give, clenches in frustration and anger, holds and soothes in times of sadness, and clutches in fear. With this hand are cities and sandcastles made, music played, and poetry written; into these hands is life given, and from these hands is it taken. All the actions of your hand move in sympathetic rhythm with the wheel of life and with your destiny. Pleasure, pain, creation, destruction, giving and receiving are all within the power of your hand. As the ring symbolizes the cycle, so does the hand symbolize the power of actualization and creation. Let these rings remind you of the many turns of the Wheel through which you and your love shall pass and may everything that is touched by your hand be touched also by love. As you exchange your rings, the outward symbol of your commitment to one another, be reminded also of the Rede. That which you do affects the other. I charge you to be ever mindful of your actions and motives.
(Optional)
Hey, Hey, who has the rings? You drunk again? Today? On this day your mate is getting married. No, then give them the rings!
Lady Name as you place your ring on Name’s finger repeat after me-
I give you this ring as a reminder that I will love, honor, and cherish you,
In all times, in all places, in all ways, forever. With this ring I thee wed and with it I bestow all of the treasures of my mind, heart and hands. And even some of my hoard.
Name as you place your ring on Lady Name’s finger repeat after me-
I give you this ring as a reminder that I will love, honor, and cherish you,
In all times, in all places, in all ways, forever. With this ring I thee wed and with it I bestow all of the treasures of my mind, heart and hands. And even some of my gold.
Closing
As we close this celebration, it do be the time to which we ask the blessings of the four winds which blow sweet breezes and fat Spanish ships, and those that bring challenge and storms, East, South, West and North. Is now that we ask for the winds to bless this ceremony.
As we do so, I bid you look into each other’s eyes.
Blessed be this union with the gifts of the East. Communication of the heart, mind, and body Fresh beginnings with the rising of each Sun. The knowledge of the growth found in the sharing of silences.
Blessed be this union with the gifts of the South. Warmth of hearth and home the heat of the heart’s passion, the light created by both to lighten the darkest of times.
Blessed be this union with the gifts of the West. The deep commitments of the lake the swift excitement of the river, the refreshing cleansing of the rain ,the all-encompassing passion of the sea.
Blessed be this union with the gifts of the North Firm foundation on which to build Fertility of the fields to enrich your lives A stable home to which you may always return.
Each of these blessings from the four cardinal directions emphasizes those things which will help you build a happy and successful union. Yet they are only tools. Tools which you must use together in order to create what you seek in this union.
This is just a brief moment in time my Lady Name and Name in your journey of life together, remind yourselves often of the love and gold that brought you together.
Now may the love, and yes the gold, which has brought you together, continue to grow and enrich your lives. May you continue to meet challenges with courage. May the happiness you share today be with you always. And may everything you have said and done here today become a living truth in your lives.
Lady Name and Name we have heard your promises to share your lives in marriage. Across time and place, you have united your lives. If you ever feel uncertain or frightened, all you need do is to call for one another and allow the spirits of love and wisdom to help you find one another and bring you peace. Take comfort in the knowledge that troubles, and misunderstandings will surely come your way, but you will be able to rely on each other for unreserved care, protection, and guidance. Give freely to each other sensitive support to help you gracefully face all the hardships you may encounter. Recognize how beauty radiates through each other’s words, acts, and hearts. Love and wisdom has touched you both, joined you together, and your shared love must be cherished just as your precious, individual gifts are to be treasured.
United by love, you become more complete and thus enter a more hallowed and privileged state of being. You belong to each other from this day onwards. Appreciate your bond. Keep only onto one another.