What happens Saturday, before the wedding

Wedding preparations begin Wednesday, when, at least in Moldavia, women start cooking a part of the food, while men get the cereals ready for the big party and for the cooking of polenta and various sortiments of bread. Also on Saturday, at the groom or bride's house, "vedrele" are played, a dance that involves all the men and women in the house. "Vedrele" are an old measuring unit for liquids, one of them summing up to 10 liters.

The dance goes on till midnight, as the groom is shaved and the bride has to splash his face with water and basel. At night, the two about to be wed exchange gifts, usually their clothes. In Transylvania, the bride sews the numbers showing the age of her future husband onto the hat that he'll wear at the wedding. Meanwhile, the friends of the bride make bread, which she'll tear above her head and share with her female friends.

A funny version of the groom shaving habit is "shaving" the man symbolically with a hovel or scythe. Afterwards, the male friends of the groom put him on a chair and lift the man up three times, while drying him up. This resembles an older Jewish tradition and could be derived from it.

Some of the most important relatives before the wedding are the godfathers. In Moldavia, about 15-20 godfathers are chosen, the bigger the number, the richer the family. Of course, many godfathers also mean many gifts….

There's another important person at the wedding, some sort of party planner called "vornic" or “cumnat de mana” in Oltenia. He basically directs the wedding, starting from the invitations, the cooking, the setup of tables, the planning of dances and everything elese. The bride’s mother and father in law are the ones making the preparations for the big event, and the father of the groom is the one doing most of the spending. 

The wedding flag

In Transylvania the wedding flag is made a week prior to the wedding, by a "stegar" (flag man) payed by the godfather. He sews the flag together with the girls and in some regions the object is made by the godfather. On Saturday night, before the wedding, the flag is placed on the godfather’s house gate. In Sibiu, there are two flags made, one for the groom and one for the bride. Basically, one of these objects is made out of a stick, on which the girls sew colored ribbons, pieces of clothing, bells, and various other items. As the flag is made, they receive food and drinks.

The flag is worn by the “stegar” from the groom's group of party people and it is protected by the man during the wedding, as the other guests will try to steal it and make the “stegar” pay for it. The pay is usually in drinks…. The next night after the wedding, the flag is broken and the first ribbons are divided among the bride's female friends.

At the beginning of the 19th century the wedding would only take place in the groom's house, where every relative would eat and dance to the music of violins and flutes. After they finished eating, the tables were pulled outside and the dancing went on, as the poor bride had to endure a Moldavian tradition: her hair was fixed with the aid of a hole made in the house’s wall (lavita, the wall compartment where people sleep) and while she stood still, there was a symbolic beating applied to the woman so she would stay faithful to her husband all her life. This tradition was not kept to the present day, but the others, summed up make for quite a nice set of Romanian habits meant to welcome the newly weds to the world or married couples.

Author: Alex Stanescu

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