Norwegian Wedding Spoons
Welcome to World of Weddings Wednesdays. The world is filled with a myriad of wonderfully unique wedding traditions and other unique celebrations, some that have become lost over time, and others that have been adopted across cultures and adapted to different religions. Every month, Events & Moments will focus on the traditions of one culture and share photos and blog posts about the wonderfully unique customs and traditions, and the history behind them. We’re always interested to know which culture you’re most excited to learn about first, so please feel free to tell us the cultures you’re looking forward to see each month! While we plan to cover them all eventually, doing only one at a time will take us a while to get through everything!
To start this series, this month we’ll be focusing on Norwegian event customs and traditions. Norwegian history is long, and steeped in traditions rich with craftsmanship. One such tradition, which has faded over the years due to the declining popularity of wood carving skills, is that of Norwegian wedding spoons. On the third day of wedding festivities, when the marriage was finalized, the newly wedded couple would dine using spoons that were connected by a chain. While many sources claim the spoons and chain would be carved from the same single piece of wood, but evidence suggests that each spoon was carved and the chain was then attached at the handle. Regardless, it requires an extremely skilled craftsman to create them.
Sharing their first meal together using the linked spoons was meant to symbolize their eternal bond. Consider the care and teamwork it would require to eat when your spoon is linked to someone else’s! Following their wedding, the couple would hang the linked spoons over their doorway for good luck.
While there are very few craftsman who still make these spoons due to their complexity and the lack of interest, we were thrilled to see this tradition being carried on by a Welsh craftsman, a wood carver by the name of Dave, who was able to assist us with some very useful information, as well as photos of his work. This beautiful image of three sets shows a custom set on the left, with unique spoons for a Norwegian bride marrying a Welsh groom (the lily is the bride’s spoon, her favorite flower, and the dragon is a traditional Welsh pattern), alongside two more traditional Norwegian sets. Check out more of his amazing woodwork at www.davidwesternlovespoons.com! Thank you very much Dave for the beautiful photos and information!
