Here There Be Dragons - Discussion/Planning

[Ealasaide]

Traditionally, Native American wedding practices were treated as a contractual agreement, usually involving the negotiation of bride price and occasionally dowry. Also, not that it necessarily has any bearing here, but most tribes practiced polygamy, as, due to hardship and warfare, there were usually more women around than men. Also, it helped to break up the workload for the women and gave them someone else talk to when the men were away at war or on prolonged hunts. Again, not that it matters here!

Some Upper Plains Tribes - a thumb of each the bride and the groom was cut slightly and the two thumbs tied together. As the blood mingled, the person officiating declared that the two were now as one, just as the blood was one. They were commanded to to "live as one flesh" ever after.

Sioux - The groom makes a gift of horses and clothing, which he sends to the bride's brothers. Then groom's family gives a feast. The bride's brothers put the bride on one of the gift horses and bring her to the feast. Many people attend the feast, but there is no formal speech or ritual other than the gifts and feasting. Once the feast is over, the couple is considered married. (Cheyenne, Shawnee and Shoshone custom is very similar, as is Apache, except that the bride would be delivered by female relations and there would be a formal speech.)

Excert from an Apache wedding ceremony:

Now you will feel no rain,
for each of you will be shelter to the other.
Now you will feel no cold,
for each of you will be warmth to the other.
Now there is no more loneliness,
for each of you will be companion to the other.
Now you are two persons
but there is only one life before you.
Go now to your dwelling to enter into
the days of your life together.
And may your days be good,
and long upon the earth.

Commanche - The prospective groom delivers a gift of horses to the girl's door. If she rejects the gift, the boy goes away. If she accepts the gift, they are considered married.

Navajo - The ceremony must start at sundown. The groom enters the hogan (ceremonial dwelling) and walks to the south. His relations sit by him on his left. The bride and her family enter, carrying food. She wears her finest clothing and all of her jewelry. The bride carries a shallow yucca basket in which there is a layer of cornmeal mush. The bride sits on the groom's right, with her family on her right. The guests brings gifts of food and other items, which they place on the floor. The medicine man tells the couple to wash their hands in a cup of water he has brought. Then he takes corn pollen from a pouch and makes lines representing the four directions in the mush. Some lines are in white cornmeal, some in yellow. As the medicine man tells the couple of the responsibilities of marriage, he shifts the position of the yucca basket in order to turn the bride's and groom's minds toward each other. Then the couple eats some of the pollen.

Eastern Cherokee - a wedding vase, one with two spouts, is filled a liquid important to the tribe. The bride drinks from one spigot, the groom from the other. A blanket is tied around the couple, biding them together as one. (Pueblo marriages are very similar to this only don't use the blanket.)

This is probably more than you really wanted to know, but that's all I could come up with on short notice. Please feel free to make use of any combination of rituals as you see fit! I hope it helps.

Also, don't forget that Child mentioned in an early post, something about wrists being bound together and walking around the fire as part of the wedding ritual.