Quaichs and Weddings!
Our long lockdown journey seems hopefully to be seeing some light at the end of the tunnel, at long last! Many of the occasions which we want and need to hold, and participate in, have either had to be postponed, or have taken place involving greatly reduced numbers of people. Weddings are one example of such happy occasions, which have been adversely affected. However, it looks like planning should be underway for a return to occasions on which larger numbers of family and friends can get together and mingle, to celebrate!
Drawing on a long lived Scottish tradition, quaichs are featuring more and more frequently in wedding celebrations. The use of a quaich during the marriage ceremony itself can be a very successful addition, with the new husband and wife sealing their vows by drinking from a ceremonial quaich. The choice of tipple is theirs!
However, we wouldn’t necessarily advise reproducing the mixture which has been used in Orkney (Bride’s) Cogs on your wedding day – our blog from August 2018 mentions “a potent mixture of hot ale, spirits, sugar and spices, which is brought out at the end of wedding celebrations.” That blog also includes a traditional recipe for the contents of the cog, for the strong hearted amongst us!
The last wedding in our own family was that of nephew David and his bride Lauren, some time before lockdown arrived. Both hail from the East of Scotland, but currently live in Melbourne, Australia. The informal images included here tend to confirm that the complementary toasting from a wedding quaich can help to relax the participants and to dissipate some of the inevitable tension involved in a wedding ceremony!
Quaichs often also feature as wedding gifts, to the bride and groom, to other family members to mark the occasion, from the happy couple to their bridesmaids and groomsmen, and perhaps to other relatives and friends. Couples re-affirming their wedding vows has become popular in recent years – another ceremony which the involvement of a mutual toast from the same quaich can enhance.
Engraving these quaichs with personal messages can individualise the gift. The sense of inclusion and participation in the happy day then stays with the recipient long after the ceremony itself is over.
Quaichshop has been working hard behind the scenes during lockdown, to make our website more easily navigable and generally more user friendly. The aim is to take you to the quaich, or other object, that you desire with the minimum of time and effort! One of the results of this work is a special page on quaichs and weddings, which we’ve just launched.