That Time My Fiancé and I Were Handfast – The Exasperated Historian

Let's start at the beginning--shall we?😂

When I was nineteen, I fell in love with the Scottish heritage I inherited from my Paternal Grandmother, who was a very proud descendant of the Graham Clan. Around the same time, I also fell in love with the Outlander books and TV show, which revolve around Scottish history and culture quite a bit!

As a history-focused, nineteen-year-old, single college girl, I did what any rationally minded individual would do--and bought a lifesize cardboard cutout of Jamie Fraser when he went on sale!

I specifically chose the Revolutionary War-era Jamie because of my interest in that period of history as well (I am a member of DAR after all!). For those who don't know, the actor who plays Jamie (Sam Heughan) is six foot five, and yes we measured--the cardboard cutout IS life size. Anyways! The point of me even mentioning this is that I began to say that Cardboard Jaime was my first boyfriend--and that was that! Ha ha, the lonely historian is dating a cardboard cutout. You get the picture!

Flash forward three years--to when I was twenty-two, and I met my first actual, flesh and blood, living boyfriend (phrasing it like that sounds really weird but I don't know how else to phrase it either!). My actual first boyfriend turned out to be a six foot four, Danish/Hispanic hunk who--although he lacks the Scottish brogue accent, his voice is actually the first part of him I fell in love with. Coincidentally, we "met" three years ago today, on Snapchat! And after going back and forth for hours, exchanging messages and getting to know one another, we ended up on an over four hour long phone call. We met in person for the first time two days later, and two days after that we officially started dating!💚

(Also, random other comparison but the Outlander character's full name is James Alexander Malcolm Mackenzie Fraser, and my fiancé's name is almost as long! He's got two middle names AND a suffix--and yes we plan on passing the name down to our future first-born son because of the incredibly rich history and legacy behind the name).

My parents were both raised Christian (my dad Methodist and my mom in various churches, both non-denominational and other sects). When my brother and I were born, our parents chose to raise us outside of the church but with the mindset that if we ever wanted to attend a church of any kind we were more than welcome to.

As I grew up, I became fascinated with various Antiquity cultures (shocker I know) and eventually decided my own spiritual and religious beliefs were closer to the umbrella term of "Pagan." This is because, in my own PERSONAL OPINION (please don't get offended by what you're about to read), I personally believe it more plausible that there are multiple "gods" or deity-like beings or spirits, as opposed to one overall. This is because of my own historical research into the subject as well as my own personal experiences throughout my life--as well as my experiences with spiritual entities or "ghosts" as most refer to them.

My fiancé, on the other hand, was raised as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, better known as "Mormons" or "LDS" (though the church itself prefers to not use either and instead likes members to use the full Latter Day Saints). He also had some other Christian influence from various family members and friends in his upbringing.

I swear I'm going to get to a point here in a minute.

For many couples, a disagreement on religious ideology can spell the death of a relationship. For us, however, my fiancé and I were extremely upfront about our beliefs from the very first phone call we had with one another, and because of that, and because of how open we both are to learning about new cultural/religious experiences and whatnot, we have both grown together throughout the past three years. I have attended church with him on several occasions, and he helped me pin up various god and goddess posters throughout our house when we moved in together. We don't have to "make" anything work, because we are respectful of one another's beliefs and love each other for them.

As I mentioned, my fiancé and I have been in each other's lives for three years now. We've been talking about marriage and babies since, well, honestly day one. I have known I've wanted to be a mom since I was five years old and he also knew he wanted to get married and have a family one day.

(Also, in case you're wondering, my man is a sort-of advocate for social media anonymity and so I always make sure to cover his face before posting any photos. Usually I use a cutesy emoji but for this specific post I thought Jamie's face was more appropriate, Ha!)

Last Autumn, we found out my fiancé's littlest brother was planning to leave on a mission for the Latter Day Saints church. For those unaware, missions usually last between eighteen months and two years, and my future brother-in-law planned on being gone for two years.

When my fiancé and I got engaged in October of 2024, we agreed we would wait for our actual wedding until his brother came home and could come to our wedding. Neither of us are in a rush to sign a piece of paper, and we both already spiritually feel as though we are married. We've been living together for over a year, and in that time we've seen and been through plenty of ups and downs that come with being in a serious, committed relationship.

Alright, now we're finally getting to the good part of the story!

A few weeks ago we were discussing the fact that we had done some church-related functions with my fiancé's family in the lead up to his brother leaving on his mission. My mom then asked me if we had any plans to do anything special for our three-year anniversary, which also happens to coincide right around the time one of my fiancé's cousins is getting Sealed in the Temple.

(For those unaware, the specific marriage ritual/ceremony celebrated within the Latter Day Saint church is called a Sealing).

Somehow this conversation switched to the idea of a Handfasting Ceremony. My fiancé had never heard of such a thing before, so I was all too happy to fill him in on the details.

A Handfasting ceremony is a traditional wedding ceremony that, according to some estimates and sources, dates back as far as 7,000 BCE. I'll post multiple links/sources below, but basically it allows a couple to get married in a simple, quick, way without any church, witness, or other involvement.

Depending on the time period in history, a Handfasting could either be seen as an actual marriage or a sort-of engagement ceremony. According to some, a traditional Handfasting lasted a year and a day, and if at the end of that time period the couple decided they no longer wanted to be together, they could part ways as easily as someone moving out and moving on.

Some sources state the bride would have to fall pregnant in that time in order to "seal the deal" but that wasn't the case for them all. Another few sources also stated that a Handfasting, for an engagement, would ensure that if the bride did fall pregnant within that year time span, the child would technically be born "in wedlock," so long as the couple did eventually have a more formal wedding.

Its important to remember that Handfasting, or similar ceremonies with other names, have existed across multiple cultures around the world for thousands of years, from Scotland to China and various places in between. To claim it is purely a Celtic ritual is not entirely true--while the term "Handfasting" itself can be tied to Celtic history, the ceremony itself did not only exist among the Celts.

And if that's not confusing enough, a lot of the "History" about Handfasting you find in various wedding blogs online isn't actually true either--instead, a lot of the information actually stems from the author Sir Walter Scott (whom I personally believe spent his life dressing up Scottish folklore in order to drive tourists to the country!).

One particular passage stuck out to me as I was doing a bit of research for this post. From the article "Handfasting--The True Story" (article linked below):

My friend and colleague Tom Morton lives in the Shetland Isles and on our new Substack, he’s just shared another ‘origin story’ that has a ring of truth about it. As he says, “The word ‘handfesta’ in Old Norse means ‘to strike a bargain by holding hands’ and holding hands seems to me a perfectly reasonable expression of affection, even for Scots.”

The best part of the idea is that, for hundreds of years, a Handfasting ceremony was recognized as a completely legal way to get married in Scotland. This changed for a few decades after the government decided to get more involved in marriages, but as of 2025 a Handfasting is once again legal (with several caveats of course).

Because the tradition dates back so far, and crosses so many cultures, there is no one set of rules or guidelines a Handfasting has to follow. You can use a random piece of string you have laying around the house (like my fiancé and I did since we forgot to actually figure out anything else beforehand), or you can go all out and buy fancy Tartan ribbons (which is a booming business apparently).

All you have to do to complete the ritual is have that piece of rope or ribbon tied around the hands of the betrothed couple. Usually a few words are said, but that's basically it. This is where the phrase "Tying the Knot" is believed to come from in relation to weddings.

For some Handfastings, you don't even have to have a witness present! Take one of the most famous fictional examples--which occurs in the fourth Outlander book Drums of Autumn, when Roger and Brianna are Handfast in front of a roaring fire while staying at an inn, soon after they are reunited in the 18th Century.

(I won't add more details than that in case its a spoiler for any potential fans!)

For my fiancé and I's specific ceremony, we had our very close (and half-Jewish friend who agrees with us on the "live and let live" religious belief system) act as our officiant. We plan on having him perform the ceremony at our actual wedding in two years as well!

My day job, when I'm not busy ranting about all things history, is working in my family's flower shop. The traditional flower of Scotland is the Thistle, and while we cannot easily get the Scottish Thistle out here in the Sonoran Desert, I did the next best thing by incorporating many of the thistle we can get in my flower crown that I made by hand just for the evening's events.

As I previously mentioned, I am descended from the Graham Clan in Scotland, which is a lowland clan (so don't picture me in full Highland-gear, speaking Gaelic and gathering fresh Heather or peat from the bogs). For those curious if there is any Outlander connection, unfortunately (at least in my OPINION) the Graham clan chose to side with the English crown against the Jacobites in the Rising of '45.

Today, every Scottish Clan has an official tartan to go along with it, which is a specific pattern and set of colors. Historically speaking, there were no specific tartans for specific clans. This is a fairly modern invention, starting in the 1800s or so, and was another way to garner interest in Scottish culture and also raise money for the clans and country by having visitors buy a tartan in their favorite clans colors.

Before the clans picked their own tartans, the previous generations of Scots would usually have kilts and tartan patterns in all different colors and styles, usually created with the local plant and animal dyes from around their lands. This is why some clans had different colors than others, even before the official clan colors were decided upon.

The Graham Tartan is a beautiful mix of dark blue, dark green, and black. I have always wanted a real kilt in my clan's colors, but they are (understandably) very expensive. So for this occasion, I chose a much more cost-effective skirt I found on Amazon.

(And it has pockets!! So I mean come on, how could I not buy it?)

I made my fiancé a boutonniere out of all the various flowers my flower crown was made of to match.

For our vows, we decided to take inspiration from some other vows we had found online and mashed some various options together.

We did take a video of the whole thing to save for our kids and grandkids one day, but I'm obviously not going to post it here, because as easy as it was to superimpose Jamie's face in Microsoft Paint over my fiancé's face, I do not have the time or patience to do that with a five minute long video!

So anyways, yeah, I guess I'm married now? Just kidding, *legally speaking* we are still only engaged, but we specifically did our Handfast two years and two days before we plan our actual wedding...that way we can do this all over again next year if we feel like it!

I hope you enjoyed my rambling and learned a little bit about Handfasting along the way. If you want to learn more about the ritual, or some of the other topics relating to Scottish history and culture I mentioned, I'm including some links below. Thanks for reading! Until next time, I am your Friendly Exasperated Historian, Zoë