Monday, June 27, 2011

Gothic Weddings

Your wedding should be a reflection of your love as a couple, your personalities, and your values. Goths are usually very romantic at heart, so it's certainly not unheard of for goths to get married. In spite of occasional discrimination from vicars confusing gothic lifestyle with satanism, handfastings and blood devotion vows are now common enough that there's nothing to stop a gothic bride and groom adding official weight to their love in a way that holds some meaning for them.

Unfortunately, discrimination can occur if a gothic couple are opting for a traditional church wedding. Often, vicars will refuse to perform the ceremony if they feel the couple is 'un-Christian'. Local newspapers will refuse to print pictures of goth couples in their wedding galleries. Unfair discrimination - as usual. As many goths follow various pagan religions, they often choose to have pagan handfasting ceremonies instead of a traditional wedding. Handfasting is a pagan ritual (duh) which symbolises a bond between lovers, but unlike a marriage ceremony is not legally recognised. Handfasting can be performed at any age.