The Emotional Wedding Haka Ritual Video That Went Viral
The Emotional Wedding Haka Ritual Video That Went Viral
This Is What It Means to Be Fiercely Loved
Every once in a while, something breaks through the noise of the internet and speaks directly to the human soul.
A few years back, a wedding haka video went viral. The last time I checked, it had been viewed over 34 million times.
I’m not surprised. Each time I watch it, I find myself in tears. Not from sentimentality, but from something deeper - a visceral recognition of what ceremony is meant to be: embodied, community-rich, emotionally raw, and spiritually resonant.
The haka, a traditional Māori ceremonial dance, is often misunderstood as a show of aggression. But in context, it’s a fierce expression of love. A display of a tribe's pride, strength, and unity. Sometimes used during Māori ceremonies and celebrations to revere guests or mark a milestone, the haka becomes a kind of call and response, not just between individuals, but between the couple and their people, between spirit and matter.
This emotional wedding haka video offers us a transmission of something ancient, beautiful, powerful, and rare.
Even if we don’t share that specific cultural lineage, many of us feel it in our bones:
“This is what it means to be fiercely loved.”
“This is what it means to be held in ritual.”
What Most Modern Weddings Are Missing
In Western culture, many couples stand at the threshold of marriage with no real rite of passage.
No ancestral echo behind them.
No collective cry.
No embodied belonging.
We often exchange vows in beautiful venues with lovely words, but without ritual structures, the moment can fall short.
We don’t always know how to hold that gravity, or how to call our communities into deeper witness.
The haka reminds us it’s possible.
So How Do We Reclaim Ceremony—Without Appropriation?
This is one of the core questions I hold in my work as a wedding officiant, ritualist, and “marriage midwife.”
I’m passionate about finding insightful ways of comprehending the great human transitions and reinventing meaningful ways of ritualizing them, without borrowing sacred traditions that don’t belong to us.
But I do believe we can be inspired by their essence and moved by their depth.
When I think about how to include rituals that carry the immediacy and emotional weight of the haka, I ask:
What is the energy of this ritual, and what is it trying to express?
How can we honor that impulse in a way that feels culturally respectful and emotionally resonant?
How can we build rituals that feel impactful and enlivening, even if we have to make them from scratch?
For some, it might mean picking up something heavy so they can finally put it down.
For others, it might be breaking an object in order to break free from painful patterns of the past.
For others still, it might look like standing barefoot on the earth - reclaiming sovereignty for generations of Chinese brides whose feet were forcefully bound.
Ceremony doesn’t have to be formulaic or traditional.
It has to be felt.
Ritual Is An Inheritance - Even If You’ve Disinherited Your Faith Of Origin
Many of us come from lineages where ritual was tied to a religion we no longer practice, or communities that no longer feel like home. Others were never given meaningful rites at all.
But the longing doesn’t go away.
We still want to be witnessed.
We still want to cross that threshold with power and beauty.
I believe we can.
I believe we must.
I believe that ceremony has the power to transform our world from dangerous divisiveness, pathological distraction, excruciating isolation, and extractive culture that only consumes and never reciprocates.
Ceremony helps us remember our humanity.
Ceremony roots us back into our embedment with the wider world.
This is the invitation:
To reimagine ritual for who you are and where you are now - by tapping into the essence of what has always been.
Your Turn
🌿 Is there a ritual from your ancestry, childhood, or spiritual path that you’ve always loved—or longed to experience?
🌿 Have you witnessed a ceremony or cultural practice that moved you deeply—something that left a visual or visceral imprint on you?
I’d love to hear. Share below.