06 Dec The magic of Winter Weddings
What is it about winter weddings that gives us that cosy loved up feeling? Is it the romance of a crackling fire and the pure safety of its warmth? Or perhaps the twinkling atmosphere; lights glittering and seasonal spices perfuming the frosty air?
“My love a beacon in the night,
My words will be your light,
To carry you to me” Sara Bareilles
Winter Wedding Memories
My friends Tricia and Kieran are soon to celebrate their anniversary. One of the clearest memories they have of their winter wedding 14 years ago is of the ‘gorgeous freezing sun’ outside the venue as well as the ‘open fires and togetherness of everyone’ inside the hotel. Tricia loved ‘the cosiness of it all’, the candles, the fairy lights, the yummy mince pies and hot, delicious mulled wine. They celebrated Christmas with their families that year, before jetting to the sun on honeymoon.
My brother also holds a similar flame (pun very much intended) for his wedding, in a winter garden overlooking Finland’s capital city, Helsinki, in late December 2001. Gavin and Anna recall the ‘intimacy’ of their gathering; the ‘warm winter garden in candlelight with the city below, snowy and glittering’. Their wedding always reminds me of the poem Winter-Time by Robert Louis Stevenson: ‘And tree and house and hill and lake, Are frosted like a wedding cake.’ Gavin mentioned that the ‘weather worry’ was removed from the planning of his special day with his wife. Together we giggled over the possible redundancy of many Irish Mammy, in their traditional planting of the Child of Prague statue. In Ireland, the superstition dictates that if you put the statue in the garden before your wedding, you’ll be blessed with glorious sunshine for your big day.
Winter Ceremony Music
So I got to thinking that, in the absence of worrying about the weather in the run up to a winter ceremony, this could leave space to get cracking on a winter ceremony soundtrack. Just saying! This mix of tunes could include The Doors Wintertime Love: ‘Come with me, dance my dear, winter’s so cold this year, you are so warm, my wintertime love’. Or The Pogues: ‘Can’t make it alone, I’ve built my dreams around you’ from a Christmassy Fairytale of New York.
Getting even more festive, how about ‘chestnuts roasting on an open fire’ from Nat King Cole. Or Springsteen’s If I Should Fall Behind: ‘We said we’d walk together, baby come what may. That come the twilight, should we lose our way. If as we’re walking, my hand should slip free, I’ll wait for you, and should I fall behind, wait for me’. Maybe not so wintery, but it is Bruce and one of Clara’s wedding ceremony songs!
If you are dreaming of a winter wedding, this might just be the magic that you need:
‘While the stars that oversprinkle, all the heavens seem to twinkle’. (Edgar Allen Poe)
Warmest winter wishes to you and yours.
Orla x