Lea Fetting holds baby Bjorn during the blood ritual ceremony. Photo / Vanessa Lei Photography
Lea Fetting holds baby Bjorn during the blood ritual ceremony. Photo / Vanessa Lei Photography
A bride who chose to get splashed with chicken blood during her wedding ceremony says although it sounds gruesome, “it’s not that bad”.
Feilding couple Lea Fetting and Cody Kivell held their wedding on a crisp January 1 morning amidst the steam rising from the geothermal pools of the Craters of the Moon walkway in Taupō.
The blood used during the ceremony was collected during the slaughter of a friend of the couple’s chicken.
Whanganui-based wedding celebrant Scott Phillips held a coconut shell filled with a mixture of blood and cranberry juice. During the couple’s vows, he flicked a brush dipped in blood on to the rings, and then into the faces of the couple and their baby Bjorn.
“It sounds gruesome, but it’s not that bad,” Fetting said.
“I am German-Swedish and my partner and I are not really religious, but we wanted to be married in front of some sort of god – and since we’re not Christian, we looked more into my heritage and Nordic mythology.
“It just felt right; it felt wrong not to be married in front of anything, we’re both quite spiritual.”
Lea Fetting holding Bjorn, wedding celebrant Scott Phillips and Cody Kivell after performing the blood ritual. Photo / Vanessa Lei Photography
The National Museum of Denmark says Viking “blot” sacrifices are made in exchange for the gods’ goodwill towards weather, fertility or luck in battle.
A wedding photographer pulled out of the ceremony at the last minute due to thinking the blood ritual would be “too graphic”, Fetting said.
The couple chose to get married alone, with only their wedding celebrant and two witnesses – a photographer and her husband.
“We wanted it to be completely personal and just us – I think you should do whatever works for you because it is your day and you have to remember that.”
Fetting chose to walk barefoot into the ceremony down a gravel path and to wear no makeup: “I wanted my husband to marry me in my natural state”.
Wedding celebrant Scott Phillips says handfasting is becoming a more common practice during wedding ceremonies. Photo / Vanessa Lei Photography
The couple also performed a handfasting ceremony – an ancient Celtic tradition where the hands of the bride and groom are bound together by cord or ribbon.
Phillips is no stranger to unusual wedding requests.
He is a self-proclaimed “extreme wedding specialist” and, through his business Married with Metal, has performed everything from zombie-themed to satanic weddings.
“I have no limits. I might not do a naturalist wedding in the middle of winter, but that’s about it.”
Due to the open nature of New Zealand’s marriage certification, Phillips said there were few rituals that would threaten the legality of a wedding ceremony.
“There’s one line that each of the couple have to say before witnesses and it has to be identified as a wedding; the only other rule is that you can’t have a fake wedding.”
Phillips once officiated a wedding where the groom arrived in a hearse.
He said it was important to get the balance right between the extreme and what was the right fit for the couple’s own style.
“I talk to couples and say you should do the things that have meaning to you, and not because they’re edgy.”
The typical celebrant used to be an older person doing a public service, but this was changing as more young people, and specifically younger women, took on the role, he said.
For Fetting, her unique wedding ceremony felt empowering and special: “I felt born again as a new wife and as a mother.”
Eva de Jong is a reporter for the Whanganui Chronicle covering health stories and general news. She began as a reporter in 2023.
