Marriage is a very serious business in Iceland. Couples are not urged to rush into matrimony. Long engagements are the norm, sometimes three or four years. Today Icelanders have adopted American and European wedding traditions for the most part, but the traditional Icelandic weddings traditions were far more elaborate.

1. ICELANDIC
TRADITIONAL
WEDDINGS
Prepared by Natalia Bokova
Group 142A

3. The wedding would usually start at least one day before the actual ceremony, with lots
and lots of drinking and song and speeches and merrymaking.

4. On the day of the wedding, traditionally a Sunday, the groom would
arrive surrounded by the best man and his relatives and often local
nobles.

5. As the groom approached, the church bells would be rung to announce
his arrival. The groom was expected to enter the church and wait for his
bride.

6. The bride would then walk very slowly through the village with her
bridesmaids. She would be dressed in her finest clothes.
When she would arrive at the church the toastmaster would escort her to
the groom and she and her groom would be seated on the bridal bench
in the church. The ceremony would then take place, concluding with the
groom placing a ring on the bride’s finger.

10. Following the ceremony a reception was held. The bride and groom, along with
the priest who married them and the fathers and the best men and the
toastmasters would sit at a high table, while the guests sat at long tables which
radiated out from the high table.

11. The wedding reception still tends to be filled with toasts, singing,
laughter, and much drinking.

12. Before the ceremony ended, the bridesmaids would take the bride to her bridal
bed and undress her, leaving her wearing only her bridal headdress. Today it is
also common for the bride to present the groom with a wedding-bed gift.

13. Traditionally the bride would be waiting for her new husband wearing only her
bridal headdress, which her new husband would remove.
Once the couple were in bed together the priest would bless them one last time
and the couple would drink from the bridal cups to seal their marriage.

15. Thank you for your attention!