Traditions - Maori Wedding

Over the last week Paperless Wedding have been working on a contemporary Maori themed design for a new potential client. 

Paperless Wedding Maori Wedding Invitation

http://www.paperlesswedding.co.nz/example/login.php?c=guest

Click Here to have a look around the site of how it would look to your guests.  There are lots of options to add pages so you can include accommodation, travel and other details to your site.

 And another....

Paperless Wedding Maori Wedding Website design

Paperless Wedding Maori Wedding Invite design

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Doing these has meant that I have spent time reading about the traditional Maori weddings.

The wedding consists of a few traditional elements.  These details have been taken from:

http://www.maoriweddings.co.nz

Te Karanga (Welcome Call)

Before entering the Maori Village / Location, a Traditional Maori Welcome Call echoes across the courtyard inviting the Bride and Groom on to the sacred land.

Te Powhiri (Traditional Song and Dance)

Having entered the Maori Village / Location, the local tribe then perform a traditional song and dance for the bridal party. This will be followed by the Hongi (touching of the nose)a tribal gesture that seals the friendship and goodwill between both parties.

Te Marena (Wedding Ceremony and Wedding Vows)

The Maori Priest commences ceremony, couple exchange vows and are serenaded with famous Maori love song "Pokarekare ana" (an emotional and heart moving experience)

Te Manaakitanga (Priest's blessing upon couple)

At the completion of the ceremony, the Maori Priest then pronounces a blessing upon Bride and Groom in the form of a prayer, following this the presentation of a Taonga (Gift) to the couple, symbolizing new beginnings and happiness,and finally completing the ceremony with the Hongi (touching of the nose).

There is a beautiful legend that also has to be told:

Maori Love Legend of Hinemoa and Tutanekai

Hinemoa was a Chieftainess of a tribe who lived in a village of Owhata, located by the shores of lake Rotorua. On lake Rotorua there is the Island of Mokoia, four kilometers across the water from Owhata. On this Island there lived another well born but unfortunately illegitimate young man named Tutanekai. The tribes of the two young lovers would sometimes visit together for special occasions, so it was during these times that Hinemoa and Tutanekai would come to know one another and fall in love with each other.

The love of Hinemoa and Tutanekai would grow stronger and stronger with each passing day and there were times in the evening when Tutanekai would declare his love for Hinemoa from the Island of Mokoia.  Tutanekai would sit on the verandah of his house which was on a hillside overlooking the Lake and he would play his flute. A gentle breeze in the evening would carry the sounds that Tutanekai played drifting across the waters of lake Rotorua.  Hinemoa as she stood on the shores of the lake, would listen intently, embracing the music from Tutanekai as he declared his love for her.

However as often as it happens in life Hinemoa's relatives suspected that she had fallen in love with Tutanekai and although he was considered a nice young man, it was not the wishes of the tribe that the two should unite together in marriage. Every night they would ensure that all the canoes were beached up so that Hinemoa would not be able to pull the canoe into the water and make her way across the lake to be with her lover Tutanekai.

One evening as Hinemoa stood on the shores of the lake with her heart so heavy and eyes full of tears, listening to the melody of Tutanekai's flute, she felt she could bear it no longer. She lashed together six gourds in order to keep her afloat and waded herself out into the lake, being guided along by the music of Tutanekai, she swam the long journey to Mokoia Island.

When she finally reached the island after hours of exhaustion, she came across a hot pool and entered it. She was trembling with cold from the journey but her heart was full of joy.  Sometime later Hinemoa could hear footsteps coming and she saw what appeared to be the shadow of a man filling a calabash with water from a cold spring next to the hot pool.

At that moment Hinemoa imitated the sound of a mans voice and called out loudly “Who is that for!”

“I am the servant of Tutanekai, this water is for my master” came the reply.

Hinemoa's heart was glad knowing that she was so close to Tutanekai's home. She then seized the calabash from the servant and broke it on the rocks. The servant then raced back to his master Tutanekai and reported to him the strange incident that occurred at the hot pool, but Tutanekai was too tired and heart broken to do anything.

The servant once again returned to fill the calabash with water and again Hinemoa seized the water calabash and broke it on the rocks. This would happen time and time again until Tutanekai finally decided to do something about the matter himself. Taking hold of his club he quickly hurried down to the pool to kill this stranger that had insulted him. Calling out for the intruder to identify himself, Tutanekai quickly made his way around the hot pool reaching around the edges, until finally he grabbed the arm of the adversary pulling him out of the water into the moonlight.

“Tutanekai” she whispered,  “It is I Hinemoa”

Tutanekai surprised as he was, stood and stared at her in the moonlight, they then embraced each other as the two young lovers made their way back to Tutanekai's house. No longer would they be separated from each other again.

The next morning as the two lovers slept in late, Tutanekai's father sent his servant off to wake him, it was then reported by the servant that as he approached the door of Tutanekai's house, as he looked into the room he could see two pairs of feet and not one lying in Tutanekai's bed.

After that Hinemoa and Tutanekai emerged together embracing one another. From that moment on their union and love for one another was accepted by their relatives and tribes.

This true love story of Hinemoa and Tutanekai is considered to be the greatest love story that is recorded in Maori History, the descendants of these two young lovers still play out this famous legend today in the city of Rotorua, serenading wedding couples with their world famous love song Pokarekare ana the greatest love song in the History of the Maori People.

What to write?!

The rain is pouring down outside and I am sat here thinking just that, what to write?! I have done lots of research into writing that perfect invite. There are so many ways phrasing your wedding invitations. I will try and cover as many as I can. I think the most important thing to remember is that the phrasing should match the theme and feel of the day you are planning.

Paperless Wedding is new exciting way of inviting people to your wedding. It breaks the traditional mould so maybe the wording should reflect that. We have made it as flexible as we can so you can style it exactly the way you want.

• Add additional lines
• Include only certain events on each invite type (evening only for example)
• Make sure you put in an RSVP deadline as well.
 • Add a quote at the bottom

The possibilities are endless.  Below is the view you will see when entering in all your details.

To start the invitation text you usually have your names. Your website names can match the invite, so if you only want just first names that is not a problem.

Tradition says that whoever is contributing towards the cost of the wedding should have their names included on the invitation. If both sets of parents are contributing to your wedding financially you may with to think about adding their names to your invitations. There is enough room. You need to check the preview to make sure the layout it OK.

Informal example:

Jim & Emma
together with their parents/families
invite you to join them in celebrating their marriage

Jim & Emma
together with their parents
Geoff and Sue Taylor and Alan and Lynn Gosling
invite you to join them in celebrating their marriage


More formal example:

Mr & Mrs G Taylor and Mr & Mrs G Gosling
invite you to join them in celebrating the marriage of their children
James & Emma

If your parents are divorced you can separate the names, this example if the brides parents are hosting the wedding:

Mr Alan Gosling and Ms Lynn Wight
invite you to join them in celebrating the marriage of their daughter
Emma Gosling to James Taylor

If one of your parents has passed away and you want to include their name you could have "Mr Alan Gosling & the late Mrs Lynn Gosling together with..."

Here are a few other traditional wording options that you could use.

• request the presence of ...
• request the honour of the presence of ...
• request the pleasure of the company of ...
• invite you to share in their joy as ...

• to join them in celebrating their wedding
• to join us in celebrating our marriage
• to join them in celebrating their union of marriage
• to join them in a celebration of love

There are a lot of good websites to get more detailed information on but I hope I have inspired you to get cracking and start your invites. The best thing about Paperless Wedding is that as soon as you have typed in your words you can see exactly how it will look to your guests. Here is one I made earlier…

Template is Autumn passion: http://www.paperlesswedding.co.nz/themes

Template is Formal Swirl: http://www.paperlesswedding.co.nz/themes

 

Template Flowering hearts : http://www.paperlesswedding.co.nz/themes

Have your say!

It's difficult to get perspective on something when you're standing close to it, you need to approach from a distance to see it properly. That's why we need to get all the feedback we can on our site, to stop us from losing our perspective. We can't do everything straight away, but we try to listen as much as we can.

As we've said before we're just starting out, so if you have any ideas, especially for new themes, then now is the time to think about how you can help to shape Paperless Wedding so it works for you, so please send us all your comments, both good and er...constructively critical.

Here are a few of the comments we've had recently:

“We don't like the way your example themes all use the Sky Tower, it's too Auckland centric, and what's all that latin text about?”

We're not expecting you to be classics scholars, the latin is used by publishers and designers as placeholder text so that the content isn't distracting from the design (see here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorem_ipsum), it is possibly achieving the opposite effect in this case though, so we're going to change it to use much friendlier example weddings. We'll also soon be featuring some venues as examples from all over both Islands and some South Pacific ones too. We're especially keen to plug eco-friendly venues, so if anybody knows of one, let us know.

“Your designs are cool! Can we use them on printed invitations, not all our guests have email?”

We've always intended to allow for printing of our designs on recycled paper, next week we're going to be talking with Claire, one of our talented designers, about transferring the designs on the site into print, although this might not be as simple as you might think, so you may have to be quite patient with us.

In the meantime, if you have guests you think don't have email, try asking them, you might be surprised to find they do, even though they don't have internet at home. If they really don't, you can always add them onto another person's invitation, then they can reply on their behalf. One of our couples, Jason and Taryn, have put some of their family on their Mum's invitation, then she's going to show them the site and reply for them when they visit. Alternatively, why not send out a few invites by card (make sure it's tree friendly), our system lets you send invitations to yourself and then reply on behalf of those who use snail mail, that way you can keep tracking your rsvps.

“Can we send out thank you cards to our guests?”

This is one of the things we'll be working on soon and plan to get out there in January, along with the ability to send out reminders to your lazier mates. Thank yous will link in with the gift list which our geek team is working on now and will be released shortly. Aside from your wish to extend your gratitude, the thank you will also be a great way to remind your guests that the site is still there and they can then log back in an upload their photos of the big day (or days!).

So make sure you contact us on rsvp@paperlesswedding.co.nz with your suggestions and comments!