Eastern European Wedding Traditions

Eastern Europe has many ancient and colorful wedding traditions that go back hundreds of years. Many of these traditions have seen a resurgence in popularity in recent years as many younger couples are looking for more traditional soil in which to plant the roots of their family trees.

May you be blessed with long life, prosperity, happiness and fertility

Many Eastern European wedding traditions concern long life, fertility and happiness and prosperity. In Czechoslovakia, for example, the bride’s friends would often plant a tree in her yard and decorate it with ribbons and brightly-painted egg shells. The belief was that the bride would live as long as the tree. Traditionally an infant would be laid on the couple’s wedding bed as a symbol of fertility. After the ceremony the young couple would traditionally break plates and the more pieces the plates broke into the more successful their marriage would be.

In Hungary a new bride wore an elaborate headdress at her wedding in which was woven strands of wheat as a symbol of fertility. Also a new bride would be presented with an egg. By smashing it she would insure the health of her future children. Traditionally the new bride would present her husband with a gift of seven scarves, seven being a lucky number and signifying her desire for a long and happy marriage.

A wedding tradition in Poland holds that the parents of the couple present them with rye bread sprinkled with salt and a glass of wine. The bread symbolizes hope that the couple will never go hungry, the salt symbolizes that life will have its difficulties, and the wine is a blessing for health and happiness.

Starting life together on the right foot

Just before her wedding a Bulgarian bride will toss a dish filled with wheat, coins and a raw egg over her head. If the dish breaks it signifies good luck to come. It is also a sign of future happiness if the bride and groom each step into the church with the right foot first. At the reception the bride’s mother throws flowers in the path of the newlyweds to insure their future health, happiness and purity, and the groom’s mother feeds the couple sweet honeyed cakes to insure their long and sweet marriage.

In the country of Croatia custom dictates that following the ceremony all of the wedding guests circle the well at the church three times to signify the Holy Trinity and then each guest throws an apple into the well to insure the fertility of the new couple.

Marriage is so important in Romania that young girls start planning their wedding day as young as aged six, when they begin collecting the treasures to fill their wedding trousseau.

But what sets an Eastern European wedding apart from all others is the music and songs and the dancing. Weddings are a time to celebrate, to look forward with hope and courage and love. Weddings in Eastern Europe, as everywhere, symbolize the human spirit as nothing else can. Violins and lively gypsy music fill the air as colorful costumes twirl across the dance floor in a never-ending kaleidoscope of joy and happiness for all the world to witness.

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