We continue to consider the same topic – wedding traditions of the peoples of the world, namely – Russian wedding traditions through the eyes of a wedding photographer.
Part three of five. Previous article about Russian wedding traditions.
At the agreement (or engagement, according to modern traditions), the division of wedding ranks was also discussed. Each of the "officials" had certain duties and played an important role in the wedding ceremony. One of the most important "officials" was the best man (at the wedding, he was tied with one or two embroidered towels over his shoulder). This is a married man, well versed in the secrets of ritual actions, with a well-hung tongue. In principle, it was he who led the wedding. Also, his invariable duty was to assist the groom in overcoming all the obstacles on the way to the bride placed by the relatives and friends of the bride.
The next in importance is the rank of "matchmaker". This is also a married man (or one of the relatives), he is like an assistant to the best man. He also leads the wedding and sometimes duplicates the functions of the "best man". There was also a matchmaker and a matchmaker. They dressed the bride, styled her hair and put on her headdress. At this point, the powers of the matchmaker ended, but the matchmaker accompanied the bride and groom until the end of the wedding.
They also appointed a tysyatsky - the head of the wedding train, who was either the groom's godfather or his uncle. From among the unmarried youth, they chose a guy and a girl to hold the crowns over the newlyweds at the wedding (according to modern wedding traditions - a best man and a best man) and called them very interestingly - podgroomishniki and podneveshnitsa. They also decided on a bed-mistress. This was a married woman from the bride's relatives. Her main duty was to protect the newlyweds' bed from the evil eye and damage all day (both during the move to the groom's house and during the wedding).
The next week or two were spent preparing for the wedding. During this week, the bride prepared her dowry with the help of her faithful friends. The items made (and mostly the items were made by the bride) for the dowry included: decoration for the marriage bed (a feather bed, a pillow, a blanket), gifts for the future husband and his relatives (embroidered towels, scarves, shirts and belts). In the southern part of Russia, the groom and his friends came to the bride's house every evening, they sang songs and danced. In the northern wedding tradition, the bride constantly lamented, regardless of the arrival of the groom.
The dowry was a very important component for the successful acceptance of the girl into a new family, therefore, not very wealthy parents were forced to save on everything they could in order to save up money for the dowry of their daughter. On the day before the wedding, a bachelorette party was held. (From there, the bachelorette party came to the world of modern wedding traditions). In the evening, the bride and her friends went to the bathhouse. Several traditional rituals took place here.
The girl said goodbye to her friends and her "single" life. She wailed like a hundred mourners at a funeral, while her friends sang ritual songs. It looked quite contrasting, since the songs of the girlfriends were extremely festive and cheerful. To the singing, the bride's braid was unbraided, which symbolized farewell to the red beauty (ribbons in the girl's braid) and to the girl's previous life. In some regions, a healer also went to the bathhouse with the bride. She collected the girl's sweat with a handkerchief and squeezed it into a specially prepared bottle, and at the wedding feast she poured the contents of the bottle into the groom's beer to unite the young couple forever.
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