Some marriages are really extraordinary and outstanding. One of the beautiful ceremonies that were held recently in New Zealand was the world’s first Pastafarian wedding. So what is Pastafarian? How it is different from other kinds of marriages and who were the first couple to tie the knot in New Zealand? Let us understand this marriage in a better informative way.
What is Pastafarian?
According to Wikipedia Pastafarianism is the world’s fastest-growing carbohydrate-based religion. Pastafarians worship the Flying Spaghetti Monster, an omnipotent deity that the church does not necessarily believe to actually exist. Outsiders call the church’s members satirists, enemies call them heretics, and landlubbers call them dirty pirates, and Pastafarians love beer.
Whom do the Pastafarian worship?
The supreme deity of Pastafarian is known as the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM). He is an invisible, omnipotent presence that takes the form of a giant clump of spaghetti with two meatballs and eyes. He created the entire universe in four days, then rested for three.
Pirates are considered holy beings. According to religion, pirates help fight global warming and protect against natural disasters. Every Pastafarian should strive towards pirate-hood. Pastafarian heaven is a land of “beer volcanoes and stripper factories.”
The Holy book to Pastafarians is the Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The Quill Award-nominated Gospel was published in 2006 following an open letter by author Bobby Henderson to the Kansas State Board of Education that satirically protested its ruling requiring the teaching of intelligent design in public schools. The Gospel discusses the various aspects of Pastafarian belief in-depth, making it indispensable for new members.
Another major Pastafarian holy book is The Loose Canon (available online), which includes religious stories, guides for everyday life, prayers, and the writings of numerous important figures in the church such as Captain Jeff.
How do a Pastafarian dress?
All Pastafarians are encouraged to adopt the dress, speech, and behavior of a pirate, especially if they are going to be preaching the holy word of the FSM. Pirates typically dress in flamboyant, colonial-era clothing, with ruffled shirts, bright jackets, bandanas, and eye patches being common.
Few facts of Pastafarian making themselves legal
- In 2013, Czech Pastafarian Lukas Novy won a legal battle to wear a strainer on his head for his government ID photo, citing religious reasons.
- In 2014, Christopher Schaeffer became the first openly Pastafarian politician in the U.S. when he wore a strainer while being sworn in to the Pomfret, NY Town Council.
- Shawna Hammond was allowed to wear their religious headwear for her driver’s license photo in Oklahoma.
- Jessica Steinhauser demonstrated her religious freedom by wearing her metal colander on her head for her driver’s license photo in Utah.
- In 2015, the New Zealand Government approved the church’s application to conduct marriage ceremonies.
The first Pastafarian Wedding in New Zealand
- The first legally recognised Pastafarian wedding took place in April 2016 at New Zealnd.
- Toby Ricketts and Marianna Fenn tied the “noodle knot” in the New Zealand South Island town of Akaroa.
- The happy couple say that guidelines of the Pastafarian religion stipulate that wedding celebrants must be pirates.
- Members of the church profess the belief that the world was created by an airborne spaghetti and meatballs-based being and humans evolved from pirates.
- New Zealand officials last month designated the religion as an officially-recognised faith, allowing Wellington-based Pastafarian Karen Martyn the legal right to conduct marriages.
- She carried out her inaugural wedding as an ordained “ministeroni” on Saturday.
- More pastafarian wedding are planned, she said, including same-sex unions that were legalised in New Zealand in 2013.
What made the couple marry?
British man Toby Ricketts and New Zealander Marianna Fenn have been together for four years. Although they never considered marrying before, when the first Pastafarian wedding celebrant was sanctioned by the New Zealand government they decided the chance to hold a humorous and original wedding was too good to pass up. Ricketts, a voiceover artist, has been working on a documentary about religion called God Doesn’t Pay Tax, and was interested in alternative and emerging religions.
The couple found this opportunity to be a fun tool to examine religion and traditions and practices which are too often taken as a given, as the only way to get married. In this fun wedding, the bride and groom wore head-to-toe pirate regalia, and guests donned eye-patches, pirate hats and feathers for the ceremony, which took place over the weekend. Fenn also wore a colander on her head – the official headdress of the church.
During the ceremony, Ricketts and Fenn exchanged rings made of pasta, and in his vows, Ricketts promised to always add salt while boiling spaghetti. The total cost of the wedding was NZ$3,000 (£1,460), and the couple supplied the wedding feast – 15kg of tomatoes from their garden, vegetarian meatballs, and plenty of pasta and bread. The couple is the first to be married by CFSM marriage celebrant Karen Martyn who said she has at least a dozen more weddings lined up this year. Interesting right.
