Blacksmith with hammer and anvil

Before the 19th century in England, the age of marriage was 21. Couples younger than 21 who couldn't wait had an alternative: sneak away just over the English border into Scotland, where marriageable age was 16. Gretna Green just over the border became famous for its fully legal, blacksmith-conducted weddings.

Our friends, Sandy and Jamie, drive us one and a half hours south of Glasgow into Gretna Green the day of our wedding. It's a weird feeling; usually we spend at least a few days with the people who will be conducting our ceremony. It's easy to put ourselves in an eloping couple's mindset: we're going as fast as we can (in a Rover rather than horse drawn carriage), hoping our parents (especially Dad with his shotgun) won't find us until after we have been wed. Geoff is wearing Jamie's kilt and accessories. Email Geoff to ask if he was wearing anything underneath!

We arrive and are hastily taken to the saddlery room, where an anvil and blacksmith await us. Facing the blacksmith on the other side of the anvil, we are asked to confirm that we are over the age of 16. We say yes. He asks if Sandy and Jamie are our witnesses. We say yes. He says he will conduct the ceremony as quickly as possible.

He asks us to state our names, and then to place our hands on top of his left hand. He picks up a huge hammer. We both flinch, thinking he's going to bash our hands together. He continues holding it up in the air.

"As a blacksmith uses a hammer and anvil to join together two pieces of white hot metal into one, I use today the hammer and anvil to join together this young man Geoff, and this young lady Kiran," the blacksmith says.

He asks us to repeat after him, one at a time, that we take each other to be our lawfully wedded spouses. Then he strikes the anvil with his hammer, once. This seals our marriage and makes it consistent with the ancient laws and rites of Scotland. If we had not yet gotten to this point and our parents had arrived, the blacksmith would have whisked us into a small bedroom. That way, our parents would look in, see us in bed, and assume we had already consummated the marriage. Sneaky...

However, no parents arrive. We may kiss.

We receive a certificate of marriage, just like we would have gotten in 1754. We are congratulated and then sign our names on a wall with hundreds of other elopers from days gone by. Then we're outa there!