Wedding season has begun!

Last weekend my wife and I attended the first of the many weddings which we have been invited to this year.

Weddings in Ukraine as in Canada are slowly including fewer and fewer guests and this is mainly because of the costs.  In the early 1990's I attended several weddings which saw several hundred guests but these days the norm is for less that 200 guests.  However, while weekending deep in the Carpathians Mt's last year, in a village of only 5-700 people, we were told that weddings there included all the villagers plus those who lived in the surrounding hills.  The wedding we attended last weekend included only about 160 guests.

Traditionally the groom and his family come to the brides home to take her to the wedding ceremony.
As part of the festivities the groom is expected to barter with her family for the hand of his future bride.  There is usually a comedic exchange where the brides family tries to exchange the bride with an older unmarried woman dressed as the bride but eventually he wins out and after a sum of money is paid he takes his prize to the wedding ceremony.

In Ukraine, a wedding must include a civil ceremony to be recognized as legal whereas the church ceremony, although almost always included, is not necessary. Because there is a ban on weddings during lent and other religious holidays there are few days left in the year which one can be married so this wedding we attended was on Sunday.

Although this couple are an exception the usual age of the bride is 17 years and he isn't much older.

There are usually two "Kolachi" or wedding breads, one is brought by the brides family and the other is from the grooms family while they also have a wedding cake at the head table.

The wedding party after the official ceremonies are over begins with sitting down to a meal. This takes place in a restaurant or the local club in larger centers.  In those villages where there are no facillities, temporary wooden floors are built and tents are set up over them and the guests are hosted under these tents.  The afternoon begins with sitting down to a meal and  we eat, drink and visit and eat, drink and visit some more. During the meal the bride and groom visit with all the guest who in turn drink a toast to their success and occationally some guests begin singing. 

The more traditional songs are of a well wishing or advice nature but since very few people know these songs they soon begin singing folk and contemporary songs. There are also calls for the bride and groom to kiss by either singing  or simply calling out "Hirko" or bitter in English meaning that they are to kiss to sweeten the party.

This "meal" carries on for several hours (since there is a strict law on drinking and driving very little drunkeness is seen at a Ukrainian wedding) when finally the dancing begins. 

In general the first meal took about 5-6 hours at which time we danced for about 2 hours and sat to eat and drink again but as the night progressed more time was spent dancing and less eating.  Although there is a high rate of alcoholism in Ukaine, at weddings very little is drunk and because so much food is consumed the alcohol is diluted by the food and as I said, one sees very few drunken people.

Because I had to drive home the next day we left around three in the morning but the party was still in full swing with enough food and drink to last till the next day.  One tradition that is still performed towards the end of the party is the mother of the groom removes the brides veil and replaces it with a kerchief  to represent that she excepts the bride into her family (matriarcal tradition or what?) After this the bride takes all the unmarried girls one by one to dance to pass on her good fortune to them and finally she dances with her mother as a final departure from her family.
At this time most older guests leave and the youth party till dawn.

The next wedding is to be here in Kolomaya at the end of the month so until then.