1. Auntie Christine & Uncle Ed
2. Jill & Eric
3. John & Cher
4. Jeff & Elizabeth
5. Chuck & Rebecca
6. Megan & Dan
7. Gen & Mike
8. Chad & Becca
9. Nina Freeman & her husband
10. Craig's aunt Joy & her husband
While all these weddings were different and memorable in their own ways -- from Megan's red Pakistani wedding dress to playing cello at Nina Freeman's to the rushed combination of Gen & Mike's wedding with my senior prom -- all were in America, and all followed pretty much the same American traditions for weddings...
So, my 11th wedding, which I attended on Friday morning, skipping both my grammar and analytical reading RSL classes for it, was a completely different experience for me. My first, and perhaps only, Russian wedding, and it was great.
You can see all the photos from the event here (scroll down).I had been given instructions to be at the wedding hall near the Chernishevskaya metro at 11:20am, and I left my house at 11:00am, seeing a #22 bus pulling up to the curb across the street just as I was exiting. It should be known that the #22 bus comes about once every 40 minutes, at least that is what it seems like, and so I ran so hard to catch this bus that one of my little red shoes came flying off AND my Holga camera fell out of my bag. Somehow I managed to recover from both of those things, and get onto the bus, just as it was pulling away, but the driver, for the first time ever, was nice enough to reopen the doors for me just to get on.
And so I arrived right at 11:20am, right when I was supposed to at the wedding hall, but of course, I should not have been concerned about being late because this is Russia and so of course something happened and people were running late and they missed their 11:30am slot for their ceremony and so we had to wait until there was another opening, finally around 12:15pm.
Another thing I should not have been concerned about was if my purple tights and red flats in combination would be too loud and flashy to wear to a Russian wedding. Never before in my life have I seen such a fabulously, motley conglomeration of outfits as I did on Friday morning. Dress ranged from sparkly, fluffy gowns that looked like they belonged in a prom, to some people just wearing nice sweaters or blazers and jeans and sneakers, to the brother of the bride wearing an entirely white suit and a black bow tie, to a woman in a short red halter-top dress and a black leather backpack that seemed to be part of her outfit.... Katya was wearing a black velvet dress with the best bright yellow nylons I have ever seen in my life, that matched perfectly with the yellow stilettos she was wearing. Olga -- who had been concerned before about only having nice clothes to wear that were black -- had on black pants and an artsy, flowy kelly green shirt with accents of gold silky fabric and beads..... everyone looked great. I did not get nearly enough photos of everyone's outfits.
I guess I should explain exactly how Russian weddings -- at least the majority of them, the non-religious ones, that is -- operate. There are two major wedding halls in the city, one not too far from Smolny, and the other near the Chernishevskaya metro stop. These halls basically are wedding factories. They have ceremonies scheduled every 15 minutes, and they are booked for every 15 minute slot available during their working hours for all seven days of the entire year. Weddings only pick up with frequency as the weather gets nicer and nicer.... When you walk into one of these halls, there is a lobby, complete with a small stand with a babushka selling confetti, balloons, cards -- just in case you were a total jackass and forgot to bring anything to the wedding. To the left is a coat check and to the right a waiting room where your party gathers and chats and mingles until it is time for the wedding.
Our party spent a significant time in the waiting area due to the fiasco previously mentioned, where I mostly stood around people-watching a feeling a little awkward because I only knew five people in the room, most of whom were part of the wedding family and so were slightly preoccupied. I stood mostly with Olga's friend Lydia Vitalnova, who I met the very first weekend after I moved into their house last June, and she commented on people's outfits and told me about the history of the wedding hall (it used to be a palace).
Once the woman working the wedding hall came into the waiting room and announced that it was our turn, there was great excitement as everyone clamored up the stairs to the ceremony room. We passed two other weddings on the short way up there -- a huge one with everyone posing on the stairs for a photograph, and a smaller, punk one where the bride had a strange lace, ripped, mini-skirt kind of wedding dress and red stockings and dyed hair to match, and the groom had a mohawk and an entirely plaid suit.
The ceremony was brief, concise if you will. I guess it had to be that way when there was a wedding 15 minutes before and one 15 minutes after -- tight, efficient, быстро -- the guests were not even fully settled into the hall when the doors in the back burst open and Misha and Lera came striding through. It was pretty refreshing to go to a wedding for once that was not drawn out and that was all about getting to the point -- introductions, Misha & Lera signed their marriage certificate, their witnesses signed, they exchanged rings, they made out a little bit (no prude American "church tongue" (Friends anyone?) in this wedding, but full on sucking face), and then, my favorite part, when the justice of the peace announced that the parents could now congratulate the new couple..... and the parents got up and hugged and kissed them.... and then she said now all of you may congratulate them..... and Misha and Lera became posivitely SWARMED with every guest in the room all trying to get close to them and hug them and showering them with flowers and excitement. Eventually some sort of receiving line formed, but as we all know Russians don't really do lines, so general chaos kept up for the majority of the time.
This presented another awkward culture thing, or more just an awkward wedding thing in general..... I had been given advice from various people -- both Russian and not-Russian -- to give a gift, regardless of whether or not I was invited to the reception (turns out I was not, I mean, at the end of the time at the wedding hall, both Katya and Olga told me thank you for coming and to come over and visit sometime again, which seemed fairly concrete. so I could have gone to Novgorod after all. oh well). So I did, and I brought it with me. Everyone else though only brought flowers -- maybe there was some kind of memo in the invitation -- and during the swarming/receiving line/congratulations, everyone handed these bouquets of flowers to Lera, who handed them off to her maid of honor slash witness who quickly turned into some kind of diversely flowered tree. It wasn't long before she couldn't hold all the flowers herself and the best man and the bride's brother had to step in and help. When it was my turn to congratulate them, I awkwardly handed Lera the bag with the present I had gotten them, which later Bryan said was as weird as if I had "brought a present to the church" in an American wedding, but whatever, it was my only option. Lera didn't seem to mind.
There was a migration of the party after the congratulating, downstairs to the café part of the hall, where glasses of champagne and juice were distributed, and small h'odourves were eaten, and Russians kept yelling "GORKA!!!!" over and over, the word for bitter, which when yelled at Russian weddings means that the bride and groom have to kiss to make things sweeter.
Things wound down after that, the bride and groom and their families got ready to go eat dinner together, I said my good byes, everyone dispersed and I sincerely hope I was not invited to any later reception later which I was supposed to get myself to, because I certainly did not go to anything (not that I knew about anything) and that would have been fairly rude if I was invited and didn't go.
So, summary of it all? Quite the cultural experience.
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