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Master and I are planning a ceremony of the roses for this summer. We are planning on doing it on our 13 wedding anniversary. It is something we have talked about for a while now and have finally set plans to make it happen.
I have googled ceremony of the roses, and have not found much information other than the basic overview of what is is and the symbolism. If anyone knows of anything we could add to it to make it special and unique, we would really appreciate it. Thanks.
The flower ceremony in and of itself was adapted from some aspects common to handfastening and or other wedding traditions by those wishing to incorperate portions of their own religious and or cultural beliefs into their bdsm practices to add an element of ritual signifigance. Though it can be preformed completely seperately from a collaring ceremony some people like to incorperate the two.
Historically the practice in and of itself dates back to the Pagan Roman Era and those cultures which influenced it and the exchange of flowers sometimes was not restricted to only the bride and or groom, but also sometimes involved other family members giving flowers, usually roses, to one another. Later during English History the practice evolved to include white and red roses that became popular during and for sometime after the Plantagent era. Dripping blood from the bride and groom unto the flowers is for the most part a wholey modern neo pagan contrivance and not nessesarally derived from the traditional hand fastenings, at least in so far as recorded history is conserned.
Some variatipns use a candle, some use sand, or salt, some as mentioned above even use blood.
Some people using it in bdsm also like to pass the collar over a candles flame to ritually purify it, where as some like to actually heat up a metal collar until it glows and plunge it into a little vat of water before placing it on the sub/bride to purify it.
Some people even incorperate a branding ceremony into the mix.
Some incorperate an "obedience ceremony" into the end of the event and some also have a "begging of the collar" portion added to the begining, some do both at once.
Some people like to mix their wedding, collaring, and other ceremonial practices into one event and others like to keep them seperated.
My Owner and I, didn't use the Rose ceremony ourselves, at least not in the way its commonly described, though we did discuss it. We did have flowers though. But we also had three different wedding ceremonies (one of which was a skyclad handfastening, one a Greek orthodox church wedding and one a Bahai sunrise ceremony), as well as on a date prior to the weddings a seperate Gorean "kollaring" ceremony (that including the begging of the collar during the preformance of obedieance).
I had a friend who once did a blood letting, rose exchange/ handfastening, and collaring all in one fell swoop with the sub/bride on her knees and under a viel /covering chained to an eyebolt in the floor awaiting the grooms arival.
Basically your own imagination is pretty much the limit when it comes to incorperating such things into any bdsm rituals you wish to practice and or incorperate into a wedding if thats your desire.
Thank you for you input. I did not know much of the history or sectors behind the ritual. The ceremony will be a vow renewal, formal collaring and formalizing our D/s commitment to each other kinda thing, so there are different parts to it.
I have done some reading on the handfastening and am undecided on adding that or not......have not talked to master about it yet, but it is very interesting.
Your ceremony's sound lovely, thank you for sharing what you did.
I came across this article awhile back and thought you might find it of some use. congratulations and best wishes to you.
http://seekers.org.uk/The%20Ceremony...he%20Roses.htm