In Irish wedding tradition, handfasting is the symbolic ritual of tying a cord around the couple’s joined hands.
The hands are commonly placed together while a ribbon, cord, or cloth is wrapped around them. This creates the familiar phrase “tying the knot,” although the expression is also used more broadly for marriage. The cord may be kept afterward as a memento.
Handfasting has historical associations with Celtic and British customs, but many modern ceremonies use it as a contemporary symbolic ritual rather than claiming an unbroken unchanged tradition. The details, number of wraps, and wording differ among celebrants.
It is distinct from the Scottish blackening custom and from the quaich ceremony, in which a couple shares a drinking vessel. Modern handfasting can be religious, secular, or blended with another wedding ceremony.