How to Incorporate Lei Into your Wedding Ceremony in Hawaii with Kahu Brutus La Benz
Many couples want to experience a bit of the Hawaiian culture with lei into their ceremony and Kahu Brutus gives a bit of the background on that as a Kahu and a hula practitioner.
Wearing or being gifted a lei for ceremonies or for birthdays or for example arriving in the islands, what it comes down to, it’s an expression of your aloha. It’s an expression of your thoughts and a way to honor your connection with someone. This would be one of the most readily done things is to exchange lei with one another.
Another thing that is popular with our local couples because they are already adorned with lei, so they do not do an exchange in the ceremony itself. What they will do is recognize special people in their lives like parents, grandparents or children by standing and receiving a lei by the couple.
What he did point out is that while it’s easy to buy a beautiful, fragrant lei at a lei stand now, in a traditional sense when lei were made, your teachers would tell you how to harvest the flowers and leaves properly so as to not damage the plant. You would learn how to weave this together and then find that person and present it to them. In Hawaiian thought, you are putting your best of your intentions, your positivity, your good mana, into whatever you are doing. So, the next time you give or receive a lei, please keep that intention of aloha into consideration.
Sometimes our parents and grandparents are no longer with us and often there will be a seat with a lei to honor them. Or there could be a photo on the chair to honor them, with a lei.
Did you wear lei in your ceremony or do you plan to?
Photo Credit: Stephen Ludwig