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Planning Your Orthodox Wedding

Wedding Candles

Eastern Orthodox churches, including Bulgarian, Serbian, Russian, Antiochian, Ukranian, Romanian and Greek use candles during the sacrament of Holy Matrimony. 

During the wedding ceremony, a series of petitions and prayers are said by the priest, who asks God to grant the couple a long and peaceful life, respective love and support and happiness in their children.  The priest unites the hands of the bride and groom during the prayers signifying their unity into one flesh.  A set of candles is lit and held by the couple symbolizing the light of purity of Christ that must be illustrated by their life.  (Sometimes a second set of hand held candles is lit and held by the koumbaro and koumbara.  This is also the time that the large church candles are lit if they are available).

During the wedding sacrament, the candles are blessed and so they need to be allowed to burn down.  Decorations can be taken off and the candles can be left burning in the church candle stands.

Hand Held Candles

Please contact your parish as some provide the candles for the couple.  The koumbaro/sponsor is responsible for the purchase of the hand held lambathes in the Greek Orthodox wedding. 

Church Candles

Additional church candles to go on the table that stands in front of the couple, ones that are held by the sponsors and/or on church stands are not mandatory.  Many purchase these additional candles, instead of flowers, to further beautify the solea of the church where the wedding party stands.

Choosing Your Candles

Traditionally the candles show light and purity by being white in color or beeswax in their making. Although they can be plain, they are usually trimmed with pretty textiles. The beautifying of the candles may be displayed with a simple bow or elaborate hanging fabrics.

At Dahlia, we aim to provide you with new, modern designs on your wedding candles yet ones that continue to follow traditions. You will find our candles to be elegantly understated in both our hand held designs and our larger church designs. We continually search for new textiles and put much thought in the composition of materials for each design. Please contact us for custom orders.

We recommend our 21" sets for the hand held lambathes as this size seems not to overpower the couple. Some designs can be made in 24" candles, if preferred. Lambathes at 32" are made to coordinate with the hand held candles and are placed in church stands.

The standard size of our hand held wedding candles is 21".  Most designs can be done in 18" & 24" as well.