Day 35 and 36: Wedding crashers

We went to a wedding yesterday!! Katie and I were wedding crashers. We had actually met the groom once before in the church at Reghin and we knew his brother from the Reghin church, but we had never met the bride. So we really didn't know the couple at all. But that didn't stop us from driving four hours with a bunch of the family members, performing in the wedding and taking part in all of the traditions. In fact, we were so successful in our crashing endeavor, that we actually got a picture of just the two of us with the bride and groom. Here is my proof:














I am very glad that we got to experience a wedding here in Romania. I am all about cultural experiences, and this was one of the most rewarding I've ever had. After a four hour in an extremely unreliable 30 year old minibus, we arrived at the church. From there, all of the family( including us of course) went to the bride's house. It is tradition for the groom, groomsmen, and the best man to ask her father if she can get married that day, and then they asked the bride. The groom picks out the bouquet beforehand, and takes it to her house to present to her. I'm guessing at one point that was probably used as some kind of bribery to get her to come. :) After some speaking they all came out of the house and got in the cars that had been decorated by the bridal party with balloons and tissue paper. They're much more considerate with their car decorating than we are. Then we drove our happy procession to a couple of places around the city, amidst much honking, to take pictures. After that, we went back to the church and had the ceremony. We sang some traditional hymns, and the choir sang a few of their own arrangements, and then there was a sermon. After that were some short vows, another kind of mini-sermon mainly directed towards the bride and groom( I'm guessing it was some kind of exhortation about the importance of what they were doing - unfortunately we didn't have a translator) and then we went downstairs for the reception to eat the first course of the meal. Did I mention that weddings are an ALL DAY ordeal? The eating goes on for six hours. Yes, that's right, six. Our appetizer alone was like a meal. That was followed by coffee, and while we were eating we sang a bunch of hymns.

After about an hour and a half, we went back upstairs and people gave the bride and groom their greetings, and sang a song or two, or put on a skit or read a Bible passage or something of that sort. The problem with being an amateur at wedding crashing, is that I didn't realize if people find out that you have a talent, especially a musical one, that comes in really handy for free entertainment. I ended up learning a song by ear in 15 mintues because the bridesmaids didn't bother to find an accompanist beforehand. After listening to it once, they informed me that they wanted to sing it...get ready, a fourth lower. For those of you who know anything about music, this is like the ultimate horror story. I also had to come up with an arrangement to a love song for the Reghin Youth group to sing, and oh yes, I had a mic thrust on me, and I had to play AND sing on that one. THEN, Katie and I had to sing and give our greetings. Like I said, I'm an amateur at this, so next wedding I crash, nobody is going to know I have any musical ability. I'm going to pretend to be tone deaf.

We ended up having four more courses of our meal, more hymns, and then the best part. The cake. Wedding cakes here are AMAZING. To bring in the cake, they turned off all of the lights, and brought in the cake which was covered in sparklers!!! It was so dramatic and AWESOME. in Romania, people give gifts at the reception, and Attila said it is tradition at most weddings that after you give the couple your gift, they give you a piece of cake. But he said it depends on the village, and at this wedding, everyone received a piece of cake, whether they gave a gift or not. Most people gave gifts of money, but some people did give household items.

At about 9:45 pm, we started home, and we got back to Reghin shortly after 2:30 am. I'm not going to lie, I'm thankful for American weddings after this experience because I'm EXHAUSTED, but I can't even begin to express how incredible it was to be able to share in the occasion of a wedding here. I crossed one more thing off of my life goals list today.