Wood Branding ceremony?

First check with your venue to see if they will even allow it.

Dear god I thought this was going to be about physical branding on someone's skin...

That was my initial reaction too @futuremrsb haha.

Definitely check with your venue. I'd be concerned about doing this inside.

Definitely wood burning! haha

I'm waiting to hear back from the venue

Gonna go ahead and join the momentarily horrified club. Good God you scared the hell out of me lmao. Maybe you could do that part outside right after the ceremony? Then move the wood to the reception space for everyone to sign

@carspfern I thought about that too

I don't think you can do that inside, unless they make electric brands specifically for ceremonies that you plug in and they get hot enough to sear the wood. My family has cattle. Traditionally, you have an actual fire that you put the irons in for about an hour while you're rounding up the calves and stuff. It puts off a lot of smoke and would be a no-go inside.

To the extent they make indoor, plug-in brands for this purpose, any ranchers in your audience might think its a little lame. You would have to know your crowd. I'd go for real branding irons in real fire outside if there's anywhere your venue would let you do it.

@E-CO The only branding I've ever done is freeze branding on horses, so I wasn't quite sure on keeping the iron hot outside of maybe an electric one or how much smoke it gave off.

I'd much prefer real irons outside if possible, but I wasn't sure if it would be lame to make everyone get up to go outside to do it or how else to conduct it

I have never seen this and I don't get the significance. You buy a brand from wherever you get them from and brand something. Why? How is that meaningful? So confused.

I googled freeze branding- I didn't know they did that; that's cool. Real branding is smelly and I feel bad for the calves, even though it's necessary.

Are you having an outdoor cocktail hour? You could brand the wood at the beginning of that and everyone could sign it. I think it'd be awkward and logistically a nightmare to ask everyone to get up in the middle of the ceremony and go outside for something that takes 10 seconds, then go back in and re-take their seats and have the ceremony continue.

We did this as apart of our outdoor ceremony as a unity brand. The key word was outdoor... We had to have the brand in hot coals for about an hour then you directly brand your wood/guest book. The brand will cool off in about 3 minutes out of coals.. Once it cools you will not be able to brand after that. The coals, brand and wood/guest book need to be pretty close to each other. We had a DOC who helped with the actual logistics of getting us the brand during the ceremony and then taking the wood/guest book to our guest book table to be signed. My husband made our guest book out of shiplack painted white then guests signed in black sharpie. It turned out amazing! Unfortunately I do not have pictures of it yet but I have a picture of our brand! I will say we designed our brand based on both families cattle ranch brands. Just because this fits your wedding theme make sure it fits and is authentic to you as a couple.

Eta: the only smoke comes from the burning coals the brand needs to be in.we used a raised fire pit.

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We will be doing this as well, we are designing our own brand and will be branding a wooden Texas. Our ceremony will be outside and they are bringing a raised fire pit down there to us. Then we will take the Texas back up there to be signed by all the guest. This way we can hang it on our wall. (:

We did this! It was an outdoor ceremony though. It did give off quite a bit of smoke. We used charcoal in a fire pit and put the brand in to heat up about an hour and a half before the ceremony.

I don't get it.

This is what my fiancé and I want to do! However we can not find a place / someone that makes custom branding irons.. anyone know of someone that makes these we could order from?

@Janelle etsy. There's tons of companies on there who make custom brands. We for one from the welded keller.

@Janelle on etsy there's tons of companies who make custom brands both traditional and electric. We got ours from the welded keller.

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I assume most couples that brand, use their own brand or their family's brand. We are doing this at our wedding, and registered our brand with the state. It will be used on future livestock and future ranch decor. I don't think they sell random brands at feed stores, they may sell individual letters. Most people have theirs made or they weld it themselves.

We are doing this at our wedding, and the ceremony will be outside. We are both from Large cattle rancher towns. So we are encouraging our guest to bring their own brands to the wedding and burn into pieces of wood we have from old stables and fences off of both of our families ranches. Once the wedding is over with my father will be making us a table with everyone's brands to display in our home. The brand we are doing is of our own design and it will be registered with the county. In Texas a brand is registeted per county not statewide like most. It will be used on our current and future livestock.. Most people have their brands made or they weld it themselves. Luckily both of us can weld so we can do it ourselves.

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View Quoted Comment My fiancé and I are going to brand a piece of framed leather with our family brand, it is what all our horses are branded with and then have everyone sign the leather as the guest book and hang it later. The brand is extremely significant because it symbolizes the farm we’ve built together.