---

---

---

Romania through international eyes

Feature
ROMANIAN LIFE AND TIMES
My big fat Romanian wedding

by Alice Ignatiadis
November 2004

This month I am going to tell you a story about some things I had long forgotten, which I rediscovered by chance one autumn day, during an amazing walk through the Peasant’s Museum.

I had read a lot about this museum, about the extraordinary vision of the kind of people who I believe come around only once every hundred years, although the time then was not ripe for them to complete their journey. But once I entered that place, I realised that I needed it. I vowed to try to understand more about my country and to pass on what I learn to others.

My journey of rediscovery began with a wedding. Somewhere on the banks of the Somes, where I was invited by Sorana, a childhood friend, to celebrate the discovery of one of the most important mysteries of life. I arrived in the village on a Thursday, when all the preparations for the big event began. Sorana’s mother and their closest neighbours twisted the bride’s biggest colac - a kind of bread - into three braids, and with artistic scrupulousness placed pastry flowers on top. Sorana skipped from door to door ‘calling the sisters’ - the bridesmaids of the town – who were her best friends. I would have liked to be a drusca (sister) but as I had already experienced the mystery of marriage that privilege could not be extended to me.

All evening I remained with the industrious women of the house, infusing the smell of colac, cozonac (sweet yeast bread) and other fresh bread as they baked in the oven and, with everybody gathered in the yard, rolled the sarmale, which would be cooked slowly the next morning.

Friday was the morning for 'announcing.' I put on fresh clothes and set off with the sisters to announce to everybody in the village that Saturday was the big wedding. Sorana’s wedding.

The heralds go from door to door in festive dress, each leaning on a macau (a walking stick embellished with flowers) and visit each household issuing invitations to the wedding in stylised calls, learned who knows when.

A certain Ion Badea Ion and Maria Lelea
Who have a daughter on the point of going away
Over the distant hill
Invite you
On Saturday evening
On Sunday morning
To enjoy a seat of rest
To a glass of drink
And much goodwill

After several hours of paying calls, I returned with the bridesmaids to the bride’s house, where we sat down with everybody around tables of special food, washed down with copious horinca (plum brandy).

The wedding itself was already underway by Sunday morning. Two cooks arrived at dawn and, with the women of the village, set about preparing the wedding feast (soup, sarmale, potatoes, bread, pies and, cozonac). By 10, the yard was full of people who awaited the appearance of the bride, wearing a wreath hand-sown by the bridesmaids. By 11.00 we had all left for the church, where we met with the party of the groom, who was festively dressed with a hat loaded with feathers, ribbons and beads. Sorana immediately stepped on the foot of her betrothed, in order to ensure that he would be attentive to her all his life. After the service the priest gave the bride and groom bread soaked in honey, wishing them a life as sweet as ambrosia.

Then came the wedding feast. And what food, what wine, what horinca! And what a folk band. I don’t believe that anybody in the world knows how to enjoy themselves at a wedding better than Romanians. Sheherezade’s endless story is nothing beside the lust for life, energy and fun of a wedding party in a village in the Somes valley.

I returned to Bucharest after a weekend of excess, with a single thought: to tell everyone who was planning a wedding to look back to the village. To learn from those who are wise about who we are and to come closer to the mysteries of life. Honestly, and as Romanians.

It’s hard to relate all I learned in that single mid-autumn weekend. But here’s a list of old wedding traditions which are more authentic and more meaningful than throwing the bouquet or firework displays:

• When entering the area where the wedding takes place, the bride and groom water a tree to ensure prosperity and a long life.

• Give up the bride’s visit to the hairdresser; transform this moment into a moving ritual. Bring the hairdresser to the bride and, with the bridesmaids, sit around and arrange the bride’s hair, to the accompaniment of a talented accordionist.

• Welcome your guests with wine and fresh colac with salt.

• Substitute a traditional Romanian band for the chamber musicians when welcoming the guests, complete with wedding shouts.

• Have two bridesmaids at the entrance who shower the guests with grain and wish them prosperity.

• Give the groom an 'old lady' - a rag doll to guard his love life and diminish his appetite for faithlessness.

• Don’t forget to have sarmale on the menu.

• Towards morning (when everybody is already worn out), help the revellers with a sour giblet soup or plenty of sour pickles to put some bounce back in their step.

• Don’t forget to wind up the wedding with a perinita – a dance of bonding, love and fertility for new couples.

Try at least one of these rituals and you will begin, as I did, an absolutely necessary journey. A journey of self-discovery.

Alice Ignatiadis is a partner at Antz, an event planning company.