Ostara, named after the Germanic Goddess of spring Eostre, is the Pagan sabbat marking and celebrating the spring equinox when the earth awakens from winter hibernation and new growth appears. Ostara is the time between winter and summer. Ostara weddings like weddings held during other sabbats, are celebrations of new beginnings and new growth.
Your Ostara Wedding
Ostara celebrates renewal, rebirth and fertility. Eggs, rabbits, chicks and lambs are associated with Ostara and of spring. Spring is here, the sun is shining, daylight hours increase as the clocks go forward, and new life can be seen in nature. Lambs are in the fields, grass is green, new leaves are on trees and carpets of yellow and white daffodils are prominent.
Bright crocuses, tulips and hyacinths are sprouting and stretching out their flowers to greet the sun’s warm glow. After a long winter, people are happier as they shed their winter layers in the sunshine. Love is in the air, and it is traditionally wedding fair season. Those who got engaged at Christmas, New Year, or on Valentine’s Day are looking to plan their special days, with many attending wedding fairs to find wedding suppliers.
Some Pagans choose summer weddings during Beltane (the traditional Pagan sabbat for handfasting ceremonies to take place), or Litha, the summer solstice. Choosing to have Ostara weddings, symbolises equality as during an equinox light and dark, day and night are exactly equal. This is one of many qualities required for a union.
Your Ostara Handfasting
Ostara weddings will usually include a handfasting ritual. Handfasting is our oldest wedding custom, and it is believed to be where the term ‘tying the knot’ originates from. Handfasting is a beautiful, spiritual and eternal bond in Pagan beliefs. There isn’t any ‘till death do us part’ in Pagan beliefs, as Pagans believe handfasted partners are joined together for an eternity. Death physically parts but they will rejoin together after death.
Your Ostara handfasting can include brightly coloured cords or ribbons (or whichever material your both choose for your binding). You can have one braided cord, or several individual ribbons which will be wrapped over your joined hands by family members or friends if you choose. There are so many different variations of colour meanings to be found online and in books. These meanings are open to personal interpretations, and not all are correct. It seems one celebrant follows another when highlighting colour meanings.
Ostara Handfasting Colours
As a Pagan celebrant who specialises in handfasting ceremonies, a personal preference for Ostara weddings with a handfasting is to liken colours chosen to the colours displayed in nature during the time of each individual handfasting ceremony.
White:
The colour associated with spring, with snowdrops and lambs. White also represents lighter times as we move from the darkness of winter into longer hours of daylight.
Joyful, rebirth and innocence are associated qualities.
Blue:
The colour of spring skies, of water and of bluebells.
Peacefulness, tranquillity and plenitude are associated qualities.
Green:
The colour of grass, spring leaves and evergreens.
Fertility, new growth and lasting prosperity are associated qualities.
Yellow:
The colour of daffodils, spring chicks and brightness.
Affection, happiness and continuity are associated qualities.
Pink:
The colour of hyacinths, tulips and crocuses.
Femininity, the Goddess and sincerity are associated with this colour.
Orange is the colour of daffodil centres, sunshine, sunset and sunrise.
Richness, radiance and new beginnings are associated qualities.
Black:
The colour of darkness; darkness associated with long winter nights and shorter hours of daylight. The colour associated with stillness and death, as the earth sleeps in the winter months, the death of the winter.
Not always a chosen colour for many Ostara weddings, it isn’t a representation of negativity or death as in final. It symbolises a shift from darker, dormant times into lighter and more energy infused times.
You can of course choose whichever colours you like, you do not have to choose spring colours.
Ostara Outdoor Ceremonies
Spring has some warm days, but it also has some cold and wet days here in the UK too. Choosing to have an outdoor ceremony in a natural space can be risky. If you and your guests do not mind being caught in some March winds or April showers, Ostara weddings held outdoors can be memorable.
Seasonal spring flowers and plants, swaying trees, beaches, water and blue skies make stunning backdrops for ceremony images. Pagans worship nature and holding their Ostara weddings or handfasting ceremonies outdoors is the preferred ceremony space choice.
Your Pagan Wedding
Setting an altar in your ceremony space is part of a Pagan wedding or handfasting ceremony. What you would like to include on that altar is a personal choice outside of your usual altar items. Offerings to the Goddess or the deities you work with should be included.
Prayers, readings, Ostara poems, Ostara gifts given to your guests and seasonal fruits and vegetables can be served to your guests. What time you choose to hold your ceremony at could be dependent on the weather forecast on your chosen date.
Book a Pagan Celebrant
If you decide to book a celebrant, research and shortlist a few celebrants who appeal to you. Most celebrants will be happy to arrange a short and informal meeting either in person or a video meeting. If you are Pagan, choose a celebrant who is also Pagan; one who is familiar with your branch of Paganism. Paganism is a spiritual belief and finding the right celebrant who is knowledgeable, respectful and inclusive of your beliefs is essential. Paganism is a way of life, not a wedding theme for likes on social media as sadly many wedding suppliers see it to be. It has been a trend these last few years in the alternative wedding scene with many Pagans seeing it as disrespectful to their spiritual beliefs.
Ostara weddings and handfasting ceremonies are joyous and celebratory occasions. Not only celebrating the next stage of the union for those the ceremony is for, also honouring the spring equinox as the wheel of the year turns.
If you are considering a Pagan wedding or handfasting ceremony and would like to book me to be your Pagan celebrant, please get in touch and we can arrange a meeting to see if I am the right celebrant for you.
