A Moldovan Nuntă -- A Wedding Party

 

Last Saturday I attended my first Moldovan Wedding Party or  "Nuntă".  Moldavian marriage is a bouquet of traditions and culture. People sit together and are served with food and wine. Traditional dances also take place. In Moldova, people speak of "wedding parties" instead of just "weddings,” The wedding ceremony itself isn’t the focus of the festivities; it can be a small, understated event leading up to the wedding party proper, usually an all-night celebration. The traditional wedding party is magnificent in its arrangement, and intense. The singing and dancing continues until daybreak.  You can see how splendid the tables are set at the restaurant in Orhei as we arrive from Piatra in a chartered bus.  As each person enters they greet the bride and groom.  Most people are bringing a bouquet of flowers to hand them.  They intern receive an initial glass of wine or cognac.  I was given a chance to even pose for a picture with the honored couple.  Danicng begins early in the evening, even before we sit down for a meal.  There are special folk dancers there to perform and to lead us into the Moldovan hora.  Everyone dances the hora.  Now the young people in the room are asked to form an honor guard of flowers as the bride and groom head for the main table for "masă".  Hear's where I heard a few bars of our traditional "Here Comes the Bride" played.  Of course the fiddle and the cognac were essential elements of our evening that continued into the morning.  Now the bridal party is at the head table and the special dancers perform for them.  The dancers bring special symbols to the couple such as the round braided loaf of bread.  Now its time for everyone to toast the bride and groom, one household at a time and announce their "bani" or money gift.  Everyone throws their "lei"  or Modovan dollars into the basket.  Of course inbetween things a spontaneous chant of "Ama!  ama!"  or love, love can erupt.  Then the bride and groom have to kiss.  Our Moldovan dancers now become Gypsie Dancers or more correctly Roma Dancers.  And a red scarf is added to the bride's head and she joins in the Gypsie Dance.  Next a special dish is brought out to the head table by the lead dancer.   It must be the most delicious roasted chicken in all the world, he says.  Now our married couple are showered with gifts from family, or more correctly speaking they are wrapped in the love of their family in the form of comforters, sheets and blankets, and sweaters.  And now it's time for flaming cake!  And of course the cutting of the cake, and the feeding of cake to the couples' chosen special "sponsors".  And  more dancing until about 5 AM when we all board the bus for a bleary eyed ride home.  No that's not the end.  There's day two of the "Nuntă".  To be continued......