These Handfasting certificates come on high-quality certificate paper with our church seal. They are great for those who are asked to perform a Handfasting ceremony. Handfasting is the marriage rite used today by many heathens, neo-Pagans and Wiccans. The term comes from the custom of shaking hands over a contract. It is an old custom rich in tradition.

Sir Walter Scott referred to a fictional sacred ritual that bound a couple in a form of temporary marriage for one year and one day in his book "The Monastery": When we are handfasted, as we term it, we are man and wife for a year and a day; that space gone by, each may choose another mate, or, at their pleasure, may call the priest to marry them for life; and this we call handfasting. In modern customs the length of time became variable rather than one year and one day. In recent years, some groups, coming almost full circle, started to use "handfasting" to mean a formal engagement to be married in the future.

Read our Minister Training section for helpful advice performing pastoral duties and ceremonies.