A wedding, both today and in ancient times, is always the most important event in the life of any girl. They prepare for it with special care, with excitement and emotions. Moreover, previously marriage was, as a rule, the only one for life.
In Russia, young beauties were especially worried about their wedding night, because traditionally the husband was the only man with whom they had intimate relationships. And the future fate of the couple largely depended on how they turned out.
In this regard, the preparation for the first wedding night was very serious and lasted more than one day. One of the rituals held on the eve of the wedding was a bath.
Transition to another life
All pre-wedding rituals were carried out in order to facilitate the girl’s transition to married life. Traditional wedding rites in Rus' had much in common with funeral rites; it is no coincidence that the bride was ordered to mourn her previous life in her parents' house, which was cheerful and carefree.
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Bathing in the bathhouse was also a pre-wedding ritual, symbolizing the transition to married life. In some ways it was reminiscent of the washing of the dead before moving on to the afterlife. The bathhouse was prepared for the bride by her closest friends and relatives, so that she would seem to be cleansed of the past.
Broom and soap from the groom's house
When washing the bride, she had to use a broom brought from the groom's house or soap given by him. Or the bathhouse was heated with wood taken from the groom's house. The room was thoroughly washed beforehand. Water had to be brought from three different sources, including wells. It is important that they are all clean.
The stones were taken from three fields, and the logs and branches with which the bathhouse was decorated from the inside were taken from three birch trees. All these actions were reflected in the songs and ditties sung by the bridesmaids. They also prepared small birch twigs, which were called “vicky”. Scraps of fabric and ribbons were tied to them, hung in the bathhouse and placed on the sides of the path leading to the bathhouse.
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Farewell to single life
You can say goodbye to single life with a fun ritual. To carry it out you will need helium balloons. The bride must write grievances, past troubles, bad memories on the balloons and release them into the sky.
The final chord to complete the bachelorette party scenario in the sauna will be the farewell wishes of the bride. It is generally accepted that on the eve of the wedding, the bride represents a special talisman. All her predictions and wishes will definitely come true. Therefore, she wishes each of her friends in turn pleasant events in their personal lives, then hugs and kisses her 3 times. At this point the party is considered over.
Bath procession
When everything was ready, the girls came to the bride sitting in the house and invited her to go to the bathhouse “across the Kalinov Bridge with her gossips and her girlfriends.” The Kalinov Bridge is spoken of in epics; it is red-hot and spans the Smorodina River. This is the last frontier facing the world of the dead.
In many regions of Russia, before visiting the bathhouse, the bride asked for blessings from her parents, as if she was really about to transition to another world.
The bride did not go to the bathhouse on her own; the girls accompanied her. A guy friend walked at the head, reading protective spells and hitting the road with a whip to scare away the evil one. If there was no man there, a woman walked ahead and swept the road with a broom.
Before entering the bathhouse, the bride bowed to the four cardinal directions, as if entering into interaction with the elements. The girlfriends asked Bannik for permission to enter. It was the spirit of the bathhouse. Sometimes the bride was carried in their arms.
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Wedding in a sauna, on the roof and with an interpreter: how newlyweds prefer to get married
A wedding is an event that most often happens only once in a lifetime.
And everyone wants to make this day unforgettable. Open Nizhny talked with Nizhny Novgorod presenters and found out what unusual weddings they had in their careers and what celebrations were most memorable, as well as what trends are emerging in organizing celebrations and what problems newlyweds face. I had a wedding during which the guests watched football. This was in 2021, during the World Cup. And the day of the celebration coincided with the match between the Russian and Croatian national teams. Realizing the importance of this moment, we decided that in addition to traditional rituals, we would add this component. And so it happened. We danced, played, joked, and during breaks we watched the game. As a result, the garden was already over, but the match was not yet - there was extra time. And after the end of the holiday we watched the football.
Before weddings, we always try to find something that the newlyweds could call their own. Before one of the celebrations, we talked with the guys, and it turned out that in his youth the groom was fond of skateboarding, like many of his friends. We decided that we would make such a feature, and in the midst of the wedding we organized a real competition. The holiday was at Voylok, and we turned the summer veranda into a ramp. The tournament consisted of two semi-finals and a final. It was necessary to get from point A to point B without touching the ground. Even the groom took part in the tournament. He reached the finals, but lost there in a bitter fight. All this was accompanied by driving music. As a result, the guests spent a long time taking pictures on the skateboards, riding them and jumping to the tune of “pankuhu”.
Wedding like in the movies
The most unusual wedding in my career was completely stylized in the spirit of the movie “Rock Wave”: music, outfits. The groom's suit was exactly the same as one of the DJs in the film. Even now, young people often try to avoid pomp and formality and make celebrations more like a dinner party for those closest to them. I once had a wedding where everyone was dressed not in evening dresses and suits, but in jeans and sweatshirts - in general, comfortable and informal clothes.
During all the time I worked, it seemed to me that our people are still quite restrained. It can be difficult to persuade a bride to go out to the hall listening to AC/DC, for example, and not to “lyrical solemn fanfare music.” We can also say that people who live or were born not in the city, but in the region, still respect all traditions and have a very conservative attitude towards wedding banquets. If the “city people” really try to follow some trends, add something non-standard to the event, then the “regional” guys are exactly those who madly love to “tear button accordions, steal the bride, sell everything that is for sale at the wedding” and etc.
Of course, parents play a big role. Sometimes it happens that newlyweds are very progressive and fashionable and dream of the most unusual wedding in the city. But the groom’s beloved mother dreamed all her life of baking a loaf, putting 100 rubles for a boy and a girl and telling a poem about the mother-in-law to the mother-in-law herself. And the guys have to adapt to her wishes, simply because they can’t convince her.
I think the trend can be called the ardent desire of many clients to organize a “buffet” wedding, that is, without a specific seating of guests. Guests do not sit in one place for the entire wedding at the tables, which are arranged in the letter P. There is simply an area in the hall where you can sit and relax, but eat, drink, dance, take pictures - in a different place.
The rocker guys who live next door to me wanted a non-standard wedding and decided to celebrate the occasion in the sauna. They rented a sauna in a hotel, held a buffet there, and invited some plump Hawaiian women to dance. In general, it was a strange event. At first I thought we’d all be in towels and with brooms. But the guests were in normal clothes. The newlyweds wanted to move away from the canons and break the mold. They succeeded.
A good friend of mine had a rooftop wedding. And on the day of the celebration there was abnormal heat. The roof itself was heated; there was no air conditioning. My DJ periodically lost consciousness. I was ready to take my shirt off. Everyone was wet, damp, everyone was suffering. A year later I met the young people and asked if they remembered the celebration, and they didn’t say a word in their memories about this heat.
In general, when organizing a wedding, you need to think about the weather. For example, I once officiated a wedding in a tent. In theory this is beautiful, but in practice it is very inconvenient: if it rains, the floor will be wet and everyone will slide. As a result, it was very cold that day, all the guests were frozen. I even had to give my jacket to one girl to warm her feet.
There were hip-hop guys who did two weddings at once - like in the movie “Bitter”. In the afternoon we held a solemn official ceremony for relatives on the veranda, and in the evening we went to the river bank, changed from dresses to caps and T-shirts and partied until the morning listening to our music with a buffet table and cocktails.
This is an interesting trend associated with the fashion for a healthy lifestyle. But it's not always good if the other guests are thirsty. Not everyone is ready to sit with fruit drink for five hours. But then everything was still fun, we managed.
I myself had a wedding where there were only raw food dishes on the tables. At that time I was just interested in a raw food diet. Not everyone understood - for the guests it was a flavor explosion. I still remember the cake my friend gave me. Everyone is used to large and three-tiered cakes, but this one was in some kind of bread tray. But no eggs.
This was actually very unexpected. I was going to the premiere of the video with friends, and on the way they called me and said: “Come urgently, help me out. Our presenter got drunk. We're all panicking. Our bartender and administrator have already tried to manage something.” I break down, I arrive, and there is a Russian girl marrying an African-American, and the guests are half Russian, half African-American. And many people don’t speak Russian. And I don’t speak boom-boom in English. My name is table. But it’s okay, there were translators there, so everything was sorted out. I got married with coffee and cream.
Advice from the presenter
I tell young people: you can relax, do whatever you want. This is your day, everyone will forgive you. You can even arrange a photo shoot in a garbage heap. At least put plastic bags on yourself. Do what you want. This is one day. But people are afraid to experiment. The guests are also nervous. What is a wedding? One tribe came to look at the other. And, for example, people from 21 to 27 years old move from wedding to wedding, because most of their friends get married during this period. And the program repeats. Often people, if they want to surprise with something, rely on the high cost, prove something to someone, show off. And in the end they forget why they gathered in the first place. After all, a wedding is not done to drink and show off, but to celebrate an important event in the company of loved ones and relatives, to get high, to feel the common spirit. At such an event, the host doesn’t even have to work—it’s enough just not to spoil anything.
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Fortune telling and omens
There was a ban - not to beat a firebrand in the heater, so as not to provoke assault from your husband in the future. Kvass, honey, beer were poured onto the heater in the bathhouse, bread and hops were thrown. Listening to the sounds made after these actions, they wondered what the character of the future spouse would be.
To ensure that the bride was fertile, the bridesmaids hovered the newlywed with a birch broom, into which branches of fruit trees and berry bushes were woven. She responded by hovering over her friends. There was a sign: whichever girl the bride whips first, she will be the first to get married.
Wedding day
In the morning we called a taxi and went together to get ready. We were very afraid that it would rain. Fortunately, this did not happen, it was a great day, and the sun even came out. After getting ready, the photographer and I walked from Trubnaya to the Wedding Palace, stopping along the way and taking photos.
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Sweat as a means of conspiracy
A healer was present in the bathhouse, who collected the sweat that formed on the body of the young woman in order to then mix it into the groom’s drink. It was a spell for love. When the sweat was mixed with the drink, a special spell was read. Sometimes friends did this instead of a healer.
When the bride left the bathhouse, she thanked her spirit. She was accompanied by girls who, using various household items, made noise, thereby driving away evil spirits.
One girl cleared the way for the bride with a broom, and the other lifted up the girl’s headdress, which she received from the newlywed. At the same time, the bride was supposed to be sad, and all the girls and married women accompanying her were supposed to have fun.
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