Viking wedding traditions revolved around legal negotiations. Because a wedding wasn't just a man and a woman joining together. It was two families joining in an alliance. Because of this, the wedding was a long process.
Alliances between families were usually the motivating factor in a Viking marriage and seldom love. Love was expected to come later with a couple’s growing familiarity with one another.
Because marriage was the center of the family in Viking culture, Viking wedding traditions were intricate and complex. Each tradition and ritual was deemed necessary to earn the blessings of the gods, an important step on the path to becoming a parent, and continuing the Viking bloodline.
Viking Weddings needed to be held on a Friday, as that was Frigga's day, and Frigga was the goddess of weddings, love, childbirth, and mothers. Mead, ale, and meat would need to be secured for all the guests invited, and gifts for the bride and groom from their families would need to be figured out. The bride was also expected to give her husband a gift called the morgedn-gifu on the morning after the wedding.
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| Frigga - Goddess of Marriage and Love |
A gothi or priest who could perform the ceremony and knew the Viking wedding traditions would need to be secured.
Viking Wedding Preparations
In the day before the wedding, Viking brides and grooms separated into gendered groups with their families and friends. The reason for this was not just to perform rituals sacred to their sexes, but so the older men and women could provide guidance and comfort.
The bride would spend time with her mother and other married women. Her kransen, a circlet worn by girls over their unbound hair, would be removed to be held in trust for her future daughter.
A bride would be brought to a bathhouse or spring by the married female members of her family and her married friends. The unwed were not permitted to partake in these rituals. At the bathhouse, the signs of her maidenhood would be removed, such as her kransen (a traditional circlet that let the world know of her virginity) and her maiden clothes. These objects would be placed in a box that would be given to her future daughter.
We know that the Vikings treasured cleanliness, and it was so important to them, it became a ritual before weddings. The bride would symbolically wash away her maidenhood with the steaming water, and would try to make herself perspirate by switching herself with birch twigs. Once she felt as though her body was cleansed enough, she would jump into ice cold water to symbolically finish the cleansing.
The Viking Wedding Ceremony
Viking wedding vows consisted of the groom presenting his newly retrieved ancestral sword to his bride; she was to hold it in trust for their future son. The bride then offered the groom a sword of her ancestors, which symbolized the transfer of her father’s protection to her new husband.
The couple then exchanged rings, offered to one another on the hilts of their new swords to further seal their wedding vows.
This completed her symbolic transition from maidenhood to marriage assisted by her husband. Feasting and merriment would then begin and last throughout the remainder of the week. Dancing, wrestling, and good-natured insult-contests provided the entertainment for the guests.
The newly married couple were once again parted the following morning for a short time.
The bride was assisted in dressing by her attendants, and her hair was braided or bound up in the fashion reserved for married women. She was now able to wear the hustrulinet, a snow-white, finely-pleated linen head-covering, as a badge of her new status as a wife. She was then escorted into the hall where, as the final legal requirement of the union, the husband paid his new wife the morning-gift before witnesses.
The viking wedding ceremony was now complete, and to show her new authority as mistress of the household, he delivered into her keeping the keys to the locks of his house.