Romanian Wedding Traditions

The wedding is the most interesting family custom of all. It is also a complex custom which has various traditional forms all over the country and combines economic, law, ritual and folkloric elements. MOLDOVA: Moldavian marriage is a bouquet of traditions and culture. People sit together and are served with food and wine. Traditional dances also take place. In Moldova, people speak of "wedding parties" instead of just "weddings, The wedding ceremony itself isnt the focus of the festivities; it can be a small, understated event leading up to the wedding party proper, usually an all-night celebration.Wedding ceremonies today are held at "casa mare" or House of happiness. The modern ceremony includes the old wedding custom of bowing to the parents as a token of gratitude and respect. The traditional wedding party is magnificent in its arrangement, and intense from the moral ethical point of view. The singing and dancing continues until the daybreak. At dawn everyone sits down for a minute and the bride is given a child to hold in her arms. According to tradition, the bride will then be sure to have a home full of children. The young husband then leads her to the threshold of their house. But before they step over the threshold the couple is showered with grain - a sign of prosperity. MARAMURES: The wedding in Maramures has a unitary structure and as most important sequences, the asking-in-marriage, the "belief" (engagement) and the wedding. The secondary characters, but with a very important position within the ceremony are the "callers" to the wedding, the bridesmaids, the "socacita" (chief-cook), the "man with the larder", the musicians, the group of the lads and the wedding guests. Taken as a whole, the ceremony is simple. A trustful person of the groom's part is going to the bride to ask her in marriage on the groom's behalf (most of the time he gets an affirmative answer only the third time), then the girl's dowry is discussed and the date of the engagement is set. The way to the wedding and the wedding itself contain many preparations and ritual objects, each one with its own significance. A great deal of attention is paid to the details in dressing, arranging of the table and most of all, the orders and priorities. There will exist, for example, an order for entering and coming out of the church, in serving the wedding guests, etc. The clothing also deserves a very special attention. The bride will wear a white shirt, white skirt with a white apron over it. Over the shirt she will wear a woolen sleeveless sheepskin coat and a woolen thick fleecy overcoat, tied on the waist with a red belt. Emotional scenes for the relatives are the "forgiving" moments - when the bride and the groom ask for forgiveness from their parents on the account of possible former mistakes.