Māori wedding words: blessings, vows and haka

The Māori wedding words most people need are few: mārena ‘to marry’, hoa rangatira ‘spouse, partner’, and the congratulation Ngā mihi nui ki a kōrua! ‘Congratulations to you both!’ The couple are two people, so everything said to them uses kōrua ‘you two’. New Zealand’s Department of Internal Affairs publishes the legal wedding vows in te reo Māori. This guide gives the words, the official vow line by line, where a blessing fits, what is said and sung at a Māori wedding, why haka are performed for the couple, and short messages for a card.

Updated 22 October 2026 · 10 min read

Tap 🔊 to hear an example. Māori examples play Papa Reo, the te reo Māori voice made by Te Hiku Media from recordings of native speakers.

Māori wedding words: the short list

Māori	English (Te Aka Māori Dictionary)
mārena	to marry; married (a loanword from English)
mārenatanga	marriage
moe	to marry, wed (also to sleep)
wahine mārena	bride
hoa rangatira	spouse, partner
hoa tāne / hoa wahine	husband / wife
tokorua	a pair, a couple
taumautanga	engagement, betrothal
rīngi mārena	wedding ring
kākahu taumau	bridal wear
oati	to vow, swear an oath (a loanword)
kaititiro	witness
hākari	feast, banquet, celebration
whakanui	to celebrate, honour
whakamihi	to congratulate, praise
whānau	family, extended family

Most of the everyday words are loans. Mārena comes from marry, rīngi from ring and oati from oath. Te Aka also uses mārena itself as the noun for a wedding: its example for hari huringa tau ‘happy anniversary’ is Hari huringa tau tuangahuru mā whā o tā tāua mārena!, “Happy fourteenth wedding anniversary!” The older Māori words are moe, the everyday word for sleep whose second sense is to marry, and pākūhā, to hold a traditional wedding ceremony.

Te Aka has a word for the bride but none for the groom: a search for bridegroom returns only words for the gift a bridegroom gave the bride’s family. The government’s vows, below, say tāne mārena for a husband, wahine mārena for a wife and hoa mārena for a partner. That use of wahine mārena follows Te Aka’s second sense of mārena, married, so the same two words mean bride on the day and wife in the vow. The words for partners, sweethearts and saying I love you are in I love you in Māori, and in-laws and the rest of the family are in Māori family words.

Congratulations in Māori for a wedding

Māori	English	Where it comes from
Ngā mihi nui ki a kōrua!	Congratulations to you both!	The course teaches Ngā mihi nui ki a koe! as Congratulations!; kōrua replaces koe for two people.
Ngā mihi. Tēnā rawa atu kōrua.	Congratulations. Thank you both very much.	The government’s wedding script, said as the couple are pronounced married. Its English version reads “Congratulations. Tēnā rawa atu kōrua.”
Ngā manaakitanga ki a kōrua.	Go well (literally, kindness and support to you two).	The same script, as the couple are handed their papers; its English says “Go well”.
Tēnā kōrua.	Greetings to you two; thank you both.	Te Aka: hello (speaking to two people), thank you.
Ka nui te aroha ki a kōrua.	Great love to you both.	Built from the course’s Ka nui te … ki a … pattern.
Hari huringa tau!	Happy anniversary!	Te Aka, for every anniversary after the day itself.

Mihi is a greeting, an acknowledgement and thanks all at once, and Te Aka gives whakamihi as to congratulate, among other things. Kia ora! also works on its own: Te Aka’s senses for it include good luck and best wishes. The first and fifth lines above are built from what the course teaches rather than quoted from a wedding; the second and third are exactly what a registered celebrant says in Māori.

Why kōrua, and not koe

Māori counts the people it speaks to: koe is one person, kōrua exactly two, and koutou three or more. A couple is two, so a card, a toast or a speech to them uses kōrua; the guests are koutou, which is why the celebrant’s first words are Tēnā koutou katoa ‘greetings to you all’. Saying ki a koe to the couple congratulates only one of them. The full set, with the four words for we, is in Māori pronouns.

Māori wedding vows: the official words

The Department of Internal Affairs publishes the script for a registry wedding in Māori and in English, and says couples who want the Māori version should discuss it with their celebrant when booking. This is the vow each person repeats after the celebrant, exactly as the department prints it, with its English version beneath:

E whakauru herekore ana ahau, a <ingoa tūturu whānui o te Tangata 1> ki tēnei mārena, ā, ka tango i a koe <ingoa tūturu whānui o te Tangata 2> hei wahine/tāne/hoa mārena māku.

“I, <Party 1 full legal name> am freely entering into this marriage and take you <Party 2 full legal name> to be my legal wife/husband/partner.”

Māori	Te Aka’s meaning	In the vow
E whakauru … ana ahau	whakauru: to enter, include	I am entering
herekore	free of conditions, free of restrictions	freely
ki tēnei mārena	mārena: to marry; marriage	into this marriage
ka tango i a koe	tango: to take up, take hold of	and take you
hei wahine / tāne / hoa mārena	hei: as; hoa: partner	as wife / husband / partner
māku	for me	of mine

The names go where the brackets are: ingoa tūturu whānui is the full legal name, and the department’s note to celebrants says the full legal names must be spoken at least once. The celebrant introduces the vows as legally binding words, he kupu paihere ā-ture, and asks each person to declare, whakapuaki, their choice before at least two witnesses. After the rings, the pronouncement ends with Ngā mihi. Tēnā rawa atu kōrua., and the two official witnesses, ngā kaititiro whaimana, sign the papers.

Writing your own vows in Māori

Most New Zealand weddings are personalised ceremonies, the government says, and in those the couple write their own vows and the celebrant takes their needs, wishes and culture into account. Te Ara dates the habit to the 1970s. The Marriage Act 1955 lets a couple marry “according to such form and ceremony as they may think fit to adopt”, with one fixed point: each must say to the other “I AB, take you CD, to be my legal wife or husband”, or words to similar effect. The Māori vow above is the government’s own wording of that legal line in te reo, and the rest of the vows can be whatever the couple choose.

Start from the legal line. Keep the department’s sentence as it is and put your own words before and after it.
Talk to the celebrant early. The government asks couples who want the Māori version of the registry vows to discuss it with their celebrant when booking, and in a personalised ceremony the celebrant helps shape the whole service.
Make sure everyone understands. If the celebrant, the couple and the witnesses do not all understand the same language, the couple must provide an interpreter, who signs a declaration before the ceremony.
Borrow attested lines. Massey University’s proverbs about love include E kore e mimiti te aroha mōu ‘my love for you will never wane’; it and others are explained in I love you in Māori.

Māori wedding blessing

There is no single traditional Māori wedding blessing to copy. Te Ara’s history of marriage says plainly that traditional Māori marriage had no rite as such: what it needed was the approval of the whānau ‘family’ and hapū ‘subtribe’. And no reputable source this guide found names a karakia or a whakataukī as the wedding blessing, so none is offered as one here.

At a church wedding the blessing belongs to the priest who marries the couple, in the words of the church’s own rite, so ask the priest or the parish whether any of it can be said in te reo Māori. Many couples choose 1 Corinthians 13 as a reading, the chapter that ends with faith, hope and love.

That chapter’s last verse, on faith, hope and charity, is the one sung in the waiata E toru ngā mea. How karakia open and close a gathering is in karakia for meetings, and the Māori prayer most people already know is the Lord’s Prayer in Māori.

Why there is a haka at a wedding

A haka at a wedding honours the couple. Te Ara quotes the haka expert Tīmoti Kāretu: a haka lets its composer, among other things, “sing someone’s praises” and “welcome his guests”. A wedding asks for both. One example went round the world in January 2016, when BBC News reported that video of the haka at Aaliyah and Benjamin Armstrong’s wedding reception in Auckland had been watched more than 19 million times.

Who performed it. The groomsmen and guests, as a surprise. The BBC says it was organised by the groom’s best man and led by his older brother.
What it meant. The bride told the BBC it was “a sign of respect” from her husband’s best man and family, not, as some online comments assumed, an attempt to intimidate him.
How the couple answered. She joined in: “I felt the need to show love and respect back.” The video ends with the couple embracing the performers.

Haka and song also have places of their own at Māori weddings. Te Ara describes a Northland custom, the kārangaranga putiputi ‘flower ceremony’: at the cutting of the cake the master of ceremonies calls each hapū in turn, or an iwi that has come from far away, to collect its flower, a piece of the cake, in these words:

‘E karanga ana kia Ngāti ____, kia haere mai, ki tā koutou putiputi.’ (I call on Ngāti ____ to come and collect your flower.)

A representative comes forward to take the cake and is then expected to perform a haka or a waiata. The songs groups sing to back up their speaker are explained in waiata tautoko. Weddings could begin with a welcome too: Te Ara’s photograph of Maud Donnelly’s marriage to Frank Perry in 1899 shows her mother’s Ngāti Kahungunu relatives welcoming the 600 guests, a woman in front performing a pūkana and waving greenery, the signal for visitors to come forward. The welcome itself is explained in what happens at a pōwhiri.

No source names one haka as the wedding haka. Families perform the haka they know, and the words of one that many schools and workplaces know are explained in Tika Tonu, whose own guide found no record of it as a wedding custom. Whatever is planned, ask the couple and their whānau first; how haka work in general is in kapa haka explained.

Wedding card messages in Māori

Each message below is built from the phrases above. Swap kōrua for koutou if the card is to a whole family, and sign off with nā ‘from’ and your name.

Short and warm

Tēnā kōrua,
Congratulations on your wedding day.
Ngā mihi nui ki a kōrua!
Nā Mere

From a close friend

Kia ora!
What a day. Thank you for letting us share it.
Ka nui te aroha ki a kōrua.
Aroha nui, nā Hone rāua ko Ana

Formal, from a workplace

Tēnā kōrua,
Warm congratulations from all of us on your marriage.
Ngā manaakitanga ki a kōrua.
Nā mātou katoa

For an anniversary

Hari huringa tau!
Ka nui te aroha ki a kōrua.

For other sign-offs, from ngā mihi to nāku noa, nā, see Māori greetings and sign-offs. Birthday wishes, and the difference between hari huritau and hari huringa tau, are in happy birthday in Māori.

A little history: marriage in Māori custom

Whānau decided. Partners were ideally chosen from within the hapū or iwi, and the extended family would meet and vigorously debate a match, Te Ara says. In some cases taonga ‘treasures’ passed from one family to the other.
Arranged marriages. Marriages were often arranged, Te Ara says, with children promised in marriage from a very young age. Te Aka gives taumau as to betroth, and Te Ara describes the 1918 marriage of Eruera and Amiria Stirling, of Ngāti Porou and Te Whānau-ā-Apanui, as one of the last taumau marriages.
Feasts. When rangatira ‘chiefs’ married into another hapū or iwi, great feasts were usually held, and for a marriage, Te Ara notes, a number of hākari might be arranged, each family trying to match the other. Te Aka’s word for the traditional marriage feast is kai whāngai.
The law. Customary marriage was recognised as valid until a Supreme Court decision in 1888, and its last legal recognition ended with the Māori Purposes Act 1951. Te Ara says traditional marriage was still in common use in the 1950s.

Going further

Kōrua, ngā mihi, aroha and hoa rangatira are early words in our own free te reo Māori course, which teaches Ngā mihi nui ki a koe! in its lesson on congratulating, and the pronouns that turn it into a wedding greeting, with Papa Reo’s native-speaker voice.