The First Humanist Wedding in Poland

Posted on February 5, 2008 by Guest Contributor

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The cute couple above (and to the left) were wed in Poland’s first ever Humanist wedding ceremony.

Jane Bechtel is the Scottish humanist celebrant who conducted it.

Held in Warsaw on Sunday the 9th of December, as part of the 100th anniversary conference of the Polish Freethinkers Association, the wedding generated a lot of interest and publicity across the Polish Media.

Humanist Ceremonies are very rare in Poland as 90% of the population is Catholic, however interest is increasing among younger people, and it has been suggested that many of those who have left the country to work in Western Europe find rational and humanist approaches appealing.

You can see more pictures from the celebration here.

By the way, it looks like Humanist wedding ceremonies are growing in popularity in other places as well:

For those who got married in a church, does this make you want to run out and redo that wedding ceremony of yours…?

(via IHEYO)


[tags]atheist, atheism, Humanist[/tags]

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  • Jen

    My friend from Poland told me that it seems that very few young people in Poland are actually religious. It seems likely we will be seeing more of these weddings soon enough.

  • http://chatiryworld.typepad.com Katherine

    Congratulations to the happy couple! We’re just planning our wedding at the moment, fortunately Humanist ceremonies are legally recognised in Scotland (not so over the border in England) and you can get married more or less anywhere. Actually we should really get a celebrant booked as they are becoming more and more popular.

  • Teresa

    I got married in a garden with a JP holding the Code of Iowa…does that count? :D

    PS–That couple is super adorable!

  • Aimee

    We did the Vegas wedding. It was off the stip, outdoors, beautiful, and not one mention of god in the ceremony, it was perfect.

  • http://groundedinreality.blogspot.com Bruce

    It seems amazing that this is the first Humanist wedding in Poland? Of course here in the states you don’t need any religious involvement whatsoever to get married. My wife and I went to Hawaii to get married. We merely filled out the application, found a non-religious officiant and viola, we’re married. And a lot of states have statutes that allow anyone to become an officiant for a short period of time in order to conduct a ceremony. Hell, you can usually just make an appointment to get married at city hall if you don’t need any type of ceremony. I’m guessing maybe it doesn’t work this way in Poland?

  • Tom

    Wspania?y! This rocks. I’m happy to see such an event in the land of my heritage! Poles are religious by and large, but well educated. This encourages me, and makes me smile! I’ll have to make some connections over there for further secular unity :)

  • Ellie

    Hey, actually, one can get married outside the church in Poland (civil marrige), so we’re not totally medieval :D You just go to the registry ;) You can ask to remove any religious refrence in the vow, because it’s there, unfortunately.
    It’s just we haven’t had anything alternative to faith-approved marriage outside that one. It’s so nice that the ceremony is finally here! ^_^
    I heard that they’re looking for new celebrants, maybe I should try? ;)