Officiating my First Wedding
Mar 27 '09
The Bottom Line The Kahu (minister) is as blessed as the couple by performing a wedding!
I recently officiated my first wedding. It was quite nice, and I very much enjoyed it.
The bride and groom are not Hawaiian, but they do love the ocean, so they married at sunset on the beach in front of the home of a friend of the bride's mother. Because the wedding was held in Hawai`i, I did part of the ceremony in Hawaiian language, but since I was the only one there who speaks Hawaiian, most was in English. I translated the Hawaiian after each section.
We started the morning with pikai (a spiritual cleansing in the ocean) at dawn. Then we went to the couple's vacation rental to finalize the wedding plans, as they had just flown in from the Mainland and we had not spoken face-to-face before.
I went over the ceremony with them, and taught them how to say the Hawaiian parts, and taught the parents how to say their part in Hawaiian.
Then I headed out to the house at the beach while they got ready. The two fathers built a little wedding chapel on the beach with a lauhala (woven pandanus leaf) floor and surrounded by la`i (a special plant considered sacred to Hawaiians).
The father of the bride brought her to the "chapel" and we commenced the ceremony. I had written it for them incorporating metaphores of voyaging on the ocean. As they want to have children, I also did the hoao for them - traditionally we would wrap them in kapa (Hawaiian bark cloth) and chant blessings over them. Instead of the Hawaiian kapa, the mother of the bride brought a beautiful hand-made white quilt with red-work (fine red embroidery of flowers and traditional Early American designs) which the bride's great-great-great grandma had made.
At the reception, the cake was served on a table covered with a cloth the bride's great-great-great grandaunt had woven from linen which she had spun herself to make her bridal linens for her hope chest. The cake was topped with a pair of bride and groom Hummel-style angels which had been on the bride's mother and father's wedding cake. The angels, quilt, and cloth were then given to the bride by her mother.
The bride had wanted to see whales and sea turtles at her wedding. I was hoping for kolea birds, as they mate for life. As the wedding photos were taken with the last of the Hawaiian sun sinking into the sea, I chanted an evening song, a whale started leaping from the water, a pair of kolea birds flew chirping from the tide pool, and a sea turtle raised its head from the water.
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Epinions.com ID:
hularider
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Member: Leilehua Yuen
Location: Hilo, Hawaii, USA
Reviews written: 70
Trusted by: 8 members
About Me:
HulaRider is an author, artist, and educator who specializes in Hawaiian culture and arts.
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