WITH St Valentine's Day and National Marriage Week approaching, the organisers of the Jorvik Viking Festival are planning to kick off this year's Jolablot event with a Viking royal wedding.

The regal nuptials of the year, based on research into marriage customs dating back more than a millennium, are set to leave the congregation speechless.

Actors dressed in the regalia associated with Viking-age weddings will re-enact the joining in matrimony of Dagfinn, Viking Jarl of Mann, to the beautiful Elswitha, Anglian daughter of the royal house at Bamburgh.

While witnessing the marriage on February 17, onlookers at St Olave's Church, Marygate, will experience the Jorvik ritual first-hand and will acquire a taste of how Viking wedding ceremonies compare to those of today. The Christian ceremony will begin with the bride entering the room and the priest delivering a blessing and requesting everyone to confess their sins.

The renowned vows, "do you take...?", which have remained unchanged for 1,300 years, will be recited, and the groom will then remove the bride's veil, the rings will be blessed and the couple will be crowned with garlands.

They will then be pronounced man and wife and will leave the church with full pomp and circumstance. It is left to the imagination of the guests as to whether the royal marriage will last.

Following the ceremony, there will be a parade of Viking troops through the city, ending at the Eye of York - a traditional meeting place throughout the ages - where a battle will commence.

The Viking festival runs from February 17 to February 24.

Updated: 10:13 Saturday, January 27, 2001