Croatian wedding

December 15th, 2007. Part three of my holiday blogging catch-up...

On the 15th of last month (last year even), we attended a wedding for one of my friends. Chris finally got to experience a full blown Croatian wedding. I asked him to write me a blog entry about it but he's yet to come through about that. Perhaps he'll change his mind about it in the future (yeah, right!). In the meantime, here is a little write up on the events of the evening.

Bachelorette party was one week prior to the wedding. Since the bride to be was about four months pregnant at the time, I didn't expect anything too wild and indeed that was the case. About 15 women gathered at the bride's house for the evening full of talking, food, drinks (not soda if you know what I mean) and music. It was nice but I must admit that I found a few things surprising. The first one was that just about every single woman there was a smoker. The second that just about every single woman there smoked in the presence and in the home of a pregnant woman (who quit smoking when pregnancy came about). And third that the pregnant woman didn't just tell them to take it outside. I certainly wouldn't have thought twice about it. I came home smelling like an ashtray. Lovely...

The wedding was in the afternoon the following Saturday. We got babysitters lined up, got ready and headed downtown. I wasn't completely certain about the location and navigating downtown Zagreb isn't necessarily the easiest of tasks. It started snowing earlier that day so the streets were slick and wet. We managed to find a parking garage in the nick of time. I decided to put on my snow shoes which made a nice ensemble with my coat and formal dress but I didn't care so much. It was really cold, we were running late and outside streets were full of ice. High heels wouldn't have cut it. We ran out into the street and found the church two minutes past the scheduled wedding time. I saw the bride bundled up at the church door so I figured that we've made it as she hasn't even entered the church. Then she looked up and I stopped... It wasn't the right bride. Quickly I thought back to our driving path and whether I've seen any other churches along the way but I knew of no other ones that fit the description that I received along with directions. That area is full of centuries old beautiful old churches though. I can think of 5 right of the bat within a half a square mile including the cathedral. I thought that we should look inside nevertheless. It turned out that the wedding has already started so we simply caught a seat in one of the available pews. The bride at the door was probably there for a wedding following the one we were attending.

After the ceremony the newlyweds didn't just walk down the aisle to leave the church as I had expected. They stayed at the altar while everyone congratulated them. From the church we headed to reception. Since we weren't in a rush anymore and I knew where we were, I suggested a different route to the parking garage. We took a scenic evening walk through an old picturesque part of town while it was snowing. It was very romantic. I found a picture of the street but without snow. You can imagine that part.

The reception started at 7:00pm with newlyweds' arrival. The announcements were made and then the food started arriving. We started with individual assorted appetizer plates. After that there was a break and the band played music. Newlyweds danced their first dance. Then soup was served. Then we had a break and some more dancing and music. Then the main course was served buffet style (we were already quite full by this part as sweets were also on the tables the entire time). After that, there was dancing and music. Several toasts were made in the meantime. Then the cake was cut and served. You guessed it, after than more dancing and music. Then long speeches came -- maid of honor and best man had to do say a few words. During the whole time drinks were served including an open bar with quite an array of available choices. It was 2:00am already. Then it was time to give gifts to the couple. We lined up and congratulated again and gave our gift to the couple (most often a card with cash, rather than purchased gifts). Then we split for the night.

I am certain that the party continued until the early morning hours and at least one more meal was served. We didn't even make it until the bouquet toss. All of that would make one Croatian style wedding. We were stuffed, danced out and tired and were glad to get home to try and recover. I can't imagine how tired the bride would have been considering that she's with child. Yes, everyone smoked away so I came home smelling like an ashtray — again.