Merry meet all
Myslef and my fiance are having a handfasting next year, we now have someone willing to perform the ceremony but are having trouble with location. We wrote to the council of Hockley Woods who said no because they didn't think it would be suitable as lack of toilet facilities and parking. I also wrote to another council for Hadleigh Castle country park but have had no response despite writng months ago. Anyone have any ideas where one can take place, preferably in the essex area of close?
blessings
RE: handfasting locations?
Hi Moonlight phoenix,
I don't know how far away you are from One Tree Hill and the Country park (Basildon way) but the Ranger there is very nice and he allowed my husband and I to hold a medievil themed Reiki blessing in the woods for our 25th wedding anniversary. We could take our own marquees, flowers,ribbons, balloons etc and decorate the area as long as we took it all away (plus rubbish) at the end of the day. There are car parks and a public toilet nearby which solves your problem with the other place.
The park rangers thought it was a lovely idea and thought that after we were the first that there would be more occasions like ours. They even asked for some copies of our photo's!! That was 3 years ago so I'm not sure if their policy has changed but if it's a conveneint distance for you it might be worth giving them a ring?.
Good luck with your search,
Love and light
reikiangel
xxx
RE: handfasting locations?
As I understand, the government are pushing thru a bill to make handfasts recognised as a legal marriage under UK law this summer....in which case any venue that is liceneced is fine and last year new rules came into place to enable marriages outdoors in more obscure places that weren't previously licenced. I'm not sure where to find out more info but I tend to look on the Wiccan and Pagan networks. 😉
Wishing you joy however you end up making your promise to one another and I only wish that all of these rules were in place when i got married 4 years ago as I had to do the whole registry office thing...groan[:@]
RE: handfasting locations?
Might wanna talk to Lyssa and MaleAurora about this. I'll send Lyssa a link to this topic cause she might know a few places..
RE: handfasting locations?
Hi there, We were having a similar problem (ours is next year) we have the celebrant booked and all the other arrangements made. Ours is at Samhain so we have to take the weather into consideration too. We finally decided to have ours in our local park at dusk on 31st October beside the lake. We are supplying big black umberellas and everyone will carry a pumpkin lantern down to the lake with them to mark the circle. I hope you find somewhere nice to have yours. Good luck.