Ruslan and Elena's Big Belarusian Wedding

This is seriously one of the best pieces I've ever uploaded and the only pity is that I didn't film it myself - it's a professional take of my wife's cousin's recent wedding and I have the permish to share it with my loyal viewers here on this channel.

The Russian wedding, especially in rural areas and including other Russian speaking countries like Belarus shown here, has dozens of traditions and rituals around it which last all day long, from the "purchase" ceremony in the morning, through to the State Registry office, the walkabout after that, the Church, and the reception with all its set piece games, dishes, dances and toasts, including "Soviet da liubov'!" ("Counsel and Love") which they are still saying, even though the Soviet Union is long gone. Even marital union was supposed to be a mini Soviet Union, with the wife like the Nation and the husband like the Party looking after the Nation - something clearly derived from the Christian idea of the wife as the Church and the Husband as the image of Christ to the Church, as outlined in Paul's letter to the Ephesians.

If you think weddings in your country are complex just watch this and see how many rural Russian wedding customs you can identify. And see people having fun and getting drunk, having excused themselves ahead of time with plenty of holy water splashed everywhere.

Even a hundred kilometres away the traditions can vary slightly - here in Western Belarus, for example, when at the end of the reception the veil is removed by the mother in law, the bride first dances with the mother in law and then with all the unmarried women trying the veil on each of them at the same time, before finally throwing the bouquet. In Eastern Belarus the bride, on removal of the veil by the mother in law, has the final dance with her own father.

Anyone with the stamina to watch this feature length piece will come away having had a laugh, having had a big taste of the culture of the locality, and will feel as though they even know the protagonists personally a little bit. you might even wish you'd been there, and had one of those gigantic pieces of cake as big as your head.

Enjoy!

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Russian
• Belarusian
• wedding
• customs
• Drogichin
• Kobrin
• Ruslan
• Elena
• Svadba

[lixie1]

I'm Russian and was married in a traditional Russian wedding (and reception) but my husband is not Russian so we decided to cut out some of the "weirdness" so as not to scare him and his family! LOL! This is great! Thanks for the memories!

[usenetposts]

@lixie1 Glad you liked it!

[DeoMachina]

I was expecting him to have to eat the apple after that..

[usenetposts]

@DeoMachina That's a different tradition. You pull the toothpicks out with your teeth, then eat the apple, but you are blindfolded and they are used toothpicks, and you're not allowed to use your hands. I think that is more a Ukrainian one than a Belarusian one, and sort of confined to prisons.

[LexieDeaves]

my sister had different wedding...some stuff was similar. its a long video, i dont think I can finish it ugh so far I saw differences

[poitrenaud]

Congratulations! What a wonderful wedding! God bless you both

[Mascherina1964]

In my hometown (Vancouver), a theatre has staged for over 10 years now a show called "Tony and Tina's Wedding." It's as if you're attending a classic Italian wedding, North-American style -- the music's loud, the food's overflowing, the guests number in the hundreds -- BUT WHAT A PARTY!!!

Not my kind of wedding (I am Italian -- by the by -- but to each his/her own!

Ciao

[Amiduffer]

@usenetposts Thanks. Some of them are really strange like the plucking of the toothpicks, making the knot with the towel, etc. It sure isn't like here where the groom just has to show up, in effect.

[usenetposts]

@usenetposts I've done the first ones, as a kind of mix of real commentary and good natured humour. Say if you want this style for the rest of the annotations or a different style, also whether more or less frequent.

[usenetposts]

@Amiduffer Should I do them a little bit tongue in cheek, straightlaced commentary or a blend of the two?