Pagan Wedding Stationery for a Handfasting in Summer

Old Ways and Awen is a new online Pagan shop.

Though given my fellow coreligionists' propensity to pretend things are more ancient than they are, perhaps that should be Ye Olde Pagan Shoppe Online (Est. Two Weeks Ago).

But while the Zazzle store and the products might be brand new, the ideas and icons referenced are not. Some are genuinely old, pinging against traditions that may be traced back centuries, by proper historians too.

There are five (well, four and a half - one collection is merely a variation on another) themed sets of Pagan wedding stationery for your summer handfasting featured here.

Given the time of year, and divine events enacted in the Wheel of the Year, the Sacred Marriage between the Goddess and the God runs throughout them all. At times it's an undercurrent, otherwise it's downright blatant. It's a theme which is reflected anyway in the timing of many early summer Pagan marriages. The stationery merely mirrors that.

Hopefully there is a Pagan or Wiccan Handfasting collection that matches your own vision for your big day leaping over the broomstick.

Most Pagans, and Wiccans in particular, will celebrate Beltane on May Eve and into May Day itself. But there are those who await the blooming of the May Blossom.

In the Hawthorn and Oak Handfasting Collection, that latter tradition is honored. But so are two of the divine legends linked with Beltane.

At this Sabbat, the Oak King reaches His prime. The God of the Light Half of the Year has been gradually growing in strength since Midwinter. For Him, this final turning of the Wheel of the Year will take Him through his zenith, towards a fateful meeting with the Holly King at Midsummer.

The Oak King is the Summer King of Wiccan lore, and Celtic too, as that's where most Wiccan legends derive. At Beltane, He is the perfect embodiment of the masculine divine energy rampant throughout nature. He is the God in all His splendor. In the Hawthorn and Oak Handfasting stationery, He represents the groom.

Also during this Sabbat, there is the Summer Queen for whom the hawthorn is emblematic. The Lady is generally role-played in parades and tableaux as the May Queen, or Queen of May.  Garlands of any blooms will adorn those Maidens on the village green, but for the Goddess Herself, then it's may blossom all the way.

And that is the name given to the blossom of the hawthorn. Here the May represent the bride.

The Hawthorn and Oak Pagan wedding themed set has a backdrop image of two trees interwoven. An overhanging oak catches the sunlight, while the hawthorn has twisted its branches - and therefore blossom - about its boughs.

This was photographed in nature, with no tomfoolery in the editing later. It's an appropriate summer stationery for a Pagan marriage ceremony.

A little more subtle and vaguely less risque (if you know your Wiccan lore regarding the Great Wedding between the Goddess and the God) is the May Blossom Pagan wedding collection.  Again referencing the link between the May Blossom of the hawthorn and the Lady.

The backdrop is a photograph taken close to the image used in Hawthorn and Oak, and on the same day too.

Here the main focus is upon the eponymous May Blossom, but She isn't entirely dominating the picture. In fact, I'd argue that up to two thirds of the image depicts the God in various aspects. Half of the foreground and a strip at the back is taken up with greenery. That's a quiet nod to the Lord's other main representation this Sabbat - the Green Man.

In addition, there's the abundance of blue sky and the sunlight on the leaves. The Great Wedding IS our fertile May Queen reaching for Father Sky. And just in case anyone missed the underlying theme of fertility, there's a bright field full of glorious crops in the background.

Absolutely subtle, but definitely afforded a quiet nod - even while I was taking the photograph, let alone converting it into Wiccan handfasting stationery - is the greenwood across the meadow.

A very well established tradition was the greenwood marriages, though they weren't entirely meant to last. The concept crept into the earliest telling of the Robin Hood legend. It was practically a staple topic of the Medieval balladeers.

In the 17th century, Cromwell and his Puritan fellows raged against the fact that so many young people still engaged in a-Maying - spending all night 'collecting May Blossom' for the next day's festivities, then emerging from the woods with their clothes inexplicably askew and leaves in their hair. They might have even remembered to grab some sprigs of hawthorn blossom on the way out.

Viewed through a certain frame of mind, the image is the Goddess (may blossom) and the God (Green Man, or hawthorn leaves) acting almost as the gateway to that great call. The invitation into the Mysteries of the greenwood beyond.

Though you may want to skip that imagery. You are handfast for more than just a night a-Maying!

Zazzle is a print on demand service, whereby stores like Old Ways and Awen pack in the designs and you customize them as needful.

At no point during this process does a professional proof-reader nor editor get involved. Though every effort will have been made by the creator to catch any typos, it's nigh on impossible to proof-read your own stuff. The onus is therefore upon you to read through what you're ordering before you press the purchase button.

Here's a little checklist just in case:

• Have you altered the names to match the real bride and groom?
• Has that messed up the formatting at all?  (If so, press the customize it button and shift things around until it looks beautiful again.)
• Have you deleted any bits you don't want? (For example on the table cards. If you've only changed half of the names, the others will need to go, else you'll end up with legendary figures ghost-sitting at your reception.  Which, granted, might be nice too.)
• Has the designer made any errors?  Particularly look at the text, though pressing the expand button to check over the 'bleed' areas is worth it for perfection's sake.

Those four points completed, you should be good to go!

If the May Blossom collection appeared to favor the Goddess, at least at first glance, then the reverse is true for the Floral Sun Stationery for a Pagan Handfasting.

In the majority of Pagan traditions, solar energy is masculine. The sun is a God, just as the moon is a Goddess. 

(Even neo-Pagan Celtic practitioners try this, with Lugh, Belenos and Grannus taking pole position. Though if they want to claim any antiquity for that kind of thinking, they have to skirt over the fact that every Brythonic, Gaelic and Gallic word for 'sun' is distinctly feminine. Hush Eigyr, Étaín and Áine. Make like Conchita and practice growing a beard!)

 But in MOST Pagan pantheons, the sun is most definitely governed by the God. See Apollo, Aten, Freyr and Sol for prime examples. The latter even lending His name to the word 'solar', which pertains to all things sunlight in the English language.

The Floral Sun Handfasting stationery, built as it is around a brightly glowing solar disc with rays cascading out in concentric patterns, appears to lean towards the God and the groom.

At least at first glance. Look a little more closely and the deeper patterns radiating out aren't sun-rays at all, but foliage. We could call that a representation of the Green Man, instantly rendering this a handfasting set for gay Pagan men, but those swirls aren't green.

To my mind, there's the great and beautiful Summer Queen reaching towards the life-affirming solar energy. It's a stylized depiction of the Great Wedding Between the Goddess and the God. Or maybe that's just me.

There had to be a pentacle in evidence eventually! And here it is in the Leafy Glade Handfasting stationery, with green pentacle.

As displayed in Old Ways and Awen Zazzle store, that symbol renders this entirely a Wiccan wedding collection.

However, not every Pagan is Wiccan and, conscious of the fact that this theme may appeal sans pentacle, that element has been layered separately.

In short, the pentacle may easily be removed by pressing the 'customize it!' button, then clicking delete on that layer. In addition, another symbol - or whatever you will have filling the gap - can be uploaded in the same area. If you wish it to match the color scheme, then the HTML color code is helpfully there in the description.

The icon isn't always in evidence on items in this green pentacle handfasting stationery, but check the back. Often it's secreted there!

So what's going on with this design then?  Once again it's the Great Wedding Between the Goddess and the God at the core, though probably the most understated version of that here.

Hidden behind all of the pentacles and the text (more obvious in the actual product) is a noon sun. From our perspective, we're in the eponymous leafy glade looking up at it directly overhead. The green foliage is reaching towards that warmth.

Now can you see the Pagan summer theme in this handfasting stationery?

The colors are the blue and green of early summer, when all is bursting with life and vibrant with fertility. That makes this a good Wiccan wedding collection for Beltane, though not quite so obviously as those with hawthorn blossom everywhere. In truth, this is summer handfasting stationery for the whole season.

But the hint of the Great Wedding is nonetheless there.

Blessed be and congratulations on your upcoming handfasting!