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Yet another different wedding, that confirms that weddings are still events where the deep roots of the culture remain. This time, I attended a wedding in Stockholm between a Swede guy and a Persian girl, and even though it took place in Stockholm, the wedding was mainly Persian in terms of traditions.
Again, a good number of differences raised from the first minute of the wedding. Nice setup in front of a beautiful landscape in Stockholm’s archipielago, and the altar ready for the event. Here, we could see the first differences.
The altar cloth is called Sofreh, and it is a very luxurious element which is transmitted from one generation to the next one, and with lots of elements with a special meaning on them:
The bride and the groom then sit facing the mirror (and the guests) during the whole ceremony. Apart from different texts which are read, more symbols and traditions appear here. For example, the groom is asked once whether he wants to marry (which he normally answers ‘yes’), and then the bride gets the same question… several times, as she does not answer in first instance. Once she answers positively, all women (please note, only women) start making a joy noise and they are married.
Before that, two women had held a scarf over the bride’s and groom’s heads, and a third one rubs the suger cones on it symbolizing sweet joy and happiness. Once they are married, the bride and the groom moisten their fingers with the honey and place it on each other’s mouth, symbolizing the sweetness and the closeness of their marriage.
After the ceremony is over, the dinner and the party begins. And again, as in the Bulgarian wedding (and unlike the Spanish ones), these two elements are not consecutive, but parallel. After 10 minutes of dinner, guests are dancing like crazy (hard to beat the Persians on this), and you just had a small salad! During the dinner, the Swedish part raised for a while in form of speeches, which become more challenging when half of the audience speak Persian and the other half Swedish. Another Swedish factor was the guest distribution on tables, as each table was composed composed of both bride’s and groom’s guests, which makes also a significant difference with other countries’.
The problems that the groom had to get the “Yes” from the bride during the ceremony had a repetition with the wedding cake. They got the cake, but the knife was to be obtained by him from women related to the bride… so they start dancing around with the knife, and he tempted them with money… which they took, ran away, and the next woman repeated the operation. It took him at least 5 to 10 minutes to finally get it, and a couple of swedish kronor.
Plovdiv is the Bulgarian city where the wedding took place, and where we headed after a day in Sofia.
The second biggest city in the country, a bit more than 300,000 citizens (similar to Alicante); it is one of the most beautiful and tourist-oriented cities in the country. It has got remains from the different ages the city has witnessed, and all religions can be found in the city, as in the whole country.
Plovdiv was specially important in the Roman period, and it even had an amphitheater and a stadium. Both of these constructions can be seen in a walk through the city, and the amphitheater can be fully visited.
Another important period of the city was the 3rd Bulgarian State, and plenty of houses of rich people and merchants are spread all over the hill where the town center is situated.
We also did a daytrip tour to a nearby fortress, Assen’s fortress, an amazing location to defend Plovdiv from any crazy assailant.
More pictures from Plovdiv and Bulgaria in this slideshow.
If you think all weddings are the same… you have not been to a wedding abroad. Weddings are one of those events where local culture plays an important role. In Spain, I am used to the church/townhall+quiet dinner+drinks+dance weddings. There are always some differences among the different weddings, but the format is pretty much the same.
Well, the Bulgarian wedding I attended was not the same. First, the actual marriage ceremony was a combination of symbols I knew (the rings, the wine, …) with some new ones: a white carpet to walk in, a flower arch to go through, or the bread the bride and the groom had to split in two parts… and the one who kept the bigger portion was meant to provide the main economical sustenance. During the ceremony, there was a traditional folk group singing and playing, as well as some traditional dancing.
Then, we moved on to the dinner part… and it also starts differently. We picked a champagne glass and we queued to go in, and toasted with the bride, the groom and the respective parents, as well as giving them the presents and some flowers for the bride. After that, there was another ceremony, with some more new symbols for me. One of them consisted in breaking a glass in hundreds of pieces… According to the speaker, each piece meant a child… no pressure.
After all guests, bride and groom sat down, we started with the dinner… but not for a long period of time. After 15 minutes, we were all up dancing хоро (the traditional Bulgarian dance), and after that we could sit down to continue with our dinner… until we had to dance again, either хоро or any other music…
If we were not on the dancefloor, it was not empty… there was always some entertainment going on. Either some kind of theatre involving the bestman, bestwoman and best friends, or some traditional dancing (see video), belly dancing (!) or speeches…
A last difference: while in Spanish weddings, guests are often quite direct to make the bride and the groom by shouting “Que se besen!” (kiss!). In Bulgaria, they do have the same act of shouting something to make them kiss, but there is more symbolism on it. There, they say “горчив” (Gorchivo), which means “bitter”, and hence they kiss to make it sweeter. Quite nicer.