Exploring the Rituals of a Wiccan Wedding

February 18, 2006

Source: The Providence Journal

http://www.projo.com/lifebeat/content/projo_20060218_pagstory.21d87c99.html

On February 18, 2006 The Providence Journal reported, "Susan Asselin started James and Angela Gorin's wedding ceremony by using a broom to sweep away negativity... As incense burned, the four bridesmaids put out their dominant hands and circled around. They created their own venerable space and welcomed the 30 guests.

The bridesmaids at this pagan wedding ceremony then performed a main staple known as 'calling the corners'... The Gorins' union reflected their religious beliefs. They consider themselves Wiccas, the most common of the pagan religions.

Paganism, the worship of nature and earth, has become a religion that 'has sparked a lot of interest,' said Grove Harris, the managing director of the Pluralism Project at Harvard University. The Pluralism Project, which collects statistics from a number of different sources, estimates that between 768,000 and 1 million people in the United States practice a form of it... Asselin said she performs about four or five pagan wedding ceremonies per year and also oversees every kind of pagan life-cycle event."