Romanian wedding traditions

                     



A wedding in Romania can be one of the most authentic and inspiring way to understand and see, with your own eyes, how this eastern european country is an unique mix of old and new, joined together in times when cultural identity tends to fade as globalisation takes its place.The tradition of the bride being kidnapped by the groom’s friends is not a specific Romanian tradition, but a custom outspread in all the eastern part of Europe. There are some differences in „the ritual” depending on the country, but, at large, we are talking about the same root custom. As many might imagine, this is a tradition reminding of old times when a bride was a very important „possesion”.However, in Romania, the custom goes like this: a group of close friends of the groom take the bride (usually by hand) and sneak her out of the building where the wedding party is taking place. Then, the bride is most often taken to a bar, a club, in the city center or in a park. The guys who kidnapped the girl call the groom and demand a ransom. They negotiate on the phone and when they reach an agreement, the bride is brought back to the wedding. Usually, the ransom is either paid in whiskey or fine wine bottles for the friends of the groom to drink or it can also be a request for the groom to make a speech to declare his love to his wife.
   Between the city hall and the church, the bride and the groom must dress properly in wedding clothes. This is also a ritual still kept in modern times even though its origins go way back in time. So, the bride is getting ready for the wedding as her mother and some of the closest friends help her with the white dress.
At a given hour, the groom comes to her house to take his wife to church. The groom also arrives with a group of friends. There is a tradition that the best man would symbolically shave the groom with a knife before the ceremony. The young men arrive at the bride’s house with  pine trees which are left at the gates for luck. At her house, the guests make a round dance with the groom and bride and after that they would sit the bride on a chair and „break” a sweet bread above her head. After that, all the people go to the church for the ceremony.Also, as we speak of weddings happening nowadays, the custom is that all the guests at the wedding party must bring gifts for the newly wed couple. But here, in Romania, these gifts are mostly money. The bar is fairly high comparing to the minimum wage. For example, as a couple coming to a wedding, the gift they give is the minimum wage – about 200 euros. The money are handed to the couple, into envelopes, at the end of the party. The couple use this money to pay for the wedding, for the honeymoon or, if they can, for a car or an apartment (not the whole price but as advance money for the bank loan).

Some Romanian superstitions for the wedding day:

  • Rain means luck in marriage
  • The bride should cry before the weeding so she would be happy in her marriage
  • It is a good sign if a relative sneezes before the ceremony
  • On the wedding day, no woman should stay between the bride and the mirror. If this happens it means that the other woman could steal the groom’s heart
  • A spider found in the creases of the dress means good luck
  • To drop the wedding rings means death
  • No weddings are allowed in feasting time
  • It is really bad luck to see another bride on your wedding day

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