Nozze alla Menta - Wedding Planner Torino

Traditionally the wedding is considered the blood union in Marae, the stone temple in front of the lagoon where the ceremony is performed open to the earth, sky and sea.

The temple was created for the presents to the bride brought here by the groom's parents and celebrations that lasted for the whole night.

The next day was the wedding day in Marae of the young couple that was celebrated in the presence of the clergyman. Then the Tapa sheet was spread on the sand for the couple to sit. The clergyman put a piece of sugar cane on the heads of the spouses, while the family women cut their forehead with shark teeth to show blood, then buried a part of blood-spotted small pieces of fabric in Marae while the rest of the fabric pieces were distributed among the family members.

At the end of the rite the couple obtained a symbolic name.

Today the ceremony is only a little different in French Polynesia: The future bridegroom arrives at the wedding venue by outrigger canoe; on the beach, dancers and musicians playing the "ukulele" greet him.

While the bride is invited at "faré bambu" (a typical house) to be prepared by the women of the village to the ceremony and where she receives massages with monoi oil and is dressed like a Polynesian princess, the bridegroom is escorted to the beach where he is tattooed (with henna) and is dressed like a Polynesian chief. Afterwards the groom is carried again to the village where the ceremony will be celebrated in front of all inhabitants in their best dresses.

After being introduced, the priest invites the couple to enter the Marae. The ceremony is celebrated in Polynesian and French and is accompanied by traditional religious songs.

Once the ceremony is performed, the couple is given their Polynesian names and those for the children they will have and, then, on their royal chair, they are carried by four warriors to the place where they will be crowned with flowers and garlands and where they will be given their marriage certificate made in "tapa" (palm bark parchment), from the name of the bark of the bread tree.