In August, I was able to attend my first wedding in Moldova. This wedding was a Baptist wedding, so like I, many Moldovans have not attended a Baptist wedding since 97% of the country is Orthodox Christian. From what I have heard, Orthodox weddings are crazy. They go for 10 or 12 hours and have lots of eating, drinking and dancing.
The wedding I attended was for the director of my NGO. First, to be legal, everyone has to be married by the mayor. So the wedding party came to the village the groom is originally from, at around 11am Saturday, and got married by the mayor. It was a fairly short ceremony, with the wedding party, photographers, a handful of family members and me.
In this ceremony, the rings were buried in wheat and when the couple was digging for them, the joke was the more wheat you spill out of the cup, the more children you would have. So of course, the guys were saying that the groom should just turn the bowl upside-down.
After the ceremony, the bridal party went to the house of groom’s family. They relaxed there a while before making the 2 hour trip back to Chisinau for the 4pm wedding.
After the ceremony in our village, I traveled home with my host family. We picked some fruits and vegetables to give to their children in Chisinau. We then went to the mother of the groom’s house and visited a little and ate some food. We then got on a small bus that was rented for the wedding and made the 2 hours trip to the big city. When we got to the city, before going to the church, we stopped and many purchased flowers (flowers are a big thing in Moldova).
Overall the service was similar to those in the US, but there were some key differences. The wedding party came in by pairs with the same music you would hear in the US; they had a ring bearer and flower girl. The father of the bride walked the bride to the front. But only the bride, groom and pastor were on the stage, the bridal party sat in the first row of seats. The bride and groom sat the majority of the wedding looking towards the crowd, while the pastor was giving his sermon and speaking about love. They red their vowels, put the rings on each other (the wedding ring goes on the right hand in Moldova and traditionally there is no engagement ring) and kissed.
After the service we went outside and relaxed. The bride and groom took pictures with most of the guests. I was also introduced to a couple that are Southern Baptist missionaries in Chisinau from Georgia (the husband was born in Michigan). I also met 5 people from the United Kingdom who were missionaries or at least involved in the religious movement in Moldova.
After the picture we all went into the basement of the church and had a huge feast. Since there was no alcohol or dancing there were many speeches, games and singing. The groom sang to his new wife, she played the piano and sang to him and many other people sang and played music for the wedding. There was also an MC who would get older couples to give everyone advice about marriage. They also did a short “newly-wed game” where the MC asked the new couple different questions about each other or where they met and such. It was funny, and I actually understood what they were saying. The best man and maid of honor did not give toasts like we do in the US, rather everyone in the bridal party pulled something out of their pocket or purse (wallet, money, cell phone, memory stick, etc) and related it to the couple and why it would be important to the couple. They also made some well wished.
The wedding and reception went from 4pm to 11pm. After the clean-up was done everyone heading back to my village pilled on the bus and got home by 2:30am. It was a lot of fun, I enjoyed it. It will probably not be my last wedding I attend in Moldova.
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