September 08th 2010 Posted in
Poland
Dear all,
As of 28.08.2010 Magda and me are man and wife!
We made a reservation for the church and restaurant November last year (you really need to do this waaay in advance in Poland) and at 28.08.2010 we married in the small cozy church just around the corner. We had guest coming from the Netherlands, Germany, England and Poland so we had lots of things to organise during the last months and weeks (bus, hotel etc etc) but all went fine.
The day before the wedding, according to polish tradition, our friends and neighbours were so friendly to throw all their old cups and plates in front of our door and we had to clean them. The braking of the plates and the cleaning of them symbolises the end of our old life and the start of our new life together. All very nice but couldn’t it be a little less loud and messy please? .
The next morning I wanted to leave with the wedding car to pickup Magda at her parent’s place (she was staying there because of make-up, hairdresser and other girrrrly stuff) but according to tradition our neighbours had blocked the street.
I could not go out with the car as they wanted wodka first to celebrate our wedding a little as well. I did not have wodka with me (hey, I’m Dutch :-p ) but after some haggling I could buy myself free with some Zloties
Then I went to pickup Magda at her parents place where were blessed by both her parents. This is one of the more important ceremonies as at this moment Magda is given away by here parents and from then on she is together with me.
Next we went of to the church and had the wedding ceremony. Like on most weddings in Poland we walked together to the altar. I was married for the state in the church (I am not religious) and Magda (she is Catholic) was married for the church and the state. During the ceremony one of our best friends read Corinthians 13 to us in English. The wedding was mostly in Polish but the marriage vow was both in Polish and English. So it was all really nice for us and the guest.
After the church we headed for the restaurant and were welcomed with the traditional salt and bread (bweeeech). The bread represents the parents hope that we will never experience hunger or need, the salt reminds us that our life may be difficult at times and that we must learn together to cope with life’s struggles. After this the BIIIG party started with LOTS of food and dancing until deep in the night with many polish traditions like thanking the parents, polish wedding games etc etc.
Funny detail: we had bought beer for the Dutch and German guest and wodka for the Polish guest but….
The Polish guest drank the beer and the Dutch and Germans drank ALL the wodka Our friends were soooo drunk in the end :-p Thanks to the Polish wedding food (basically a sophisticated diet to enable people to drink as much wodka as possible with the least hangover the following day) they were surprisingly fit the next day because….
On Sunday we celebrated again with our friends and parents at our home! Most polish wedding last 2 days, probably because of the huuuge amount of leftovers
The next days, despite the bad weather, we and our friends visited Krakow and next day went for a relaxing day in the swimming pool while the rest of our family travelled around Poland.
So a BIG THANK YOU!! to all who attended our wedding. You made this into an unforgettable day for us!
We hope you had a great time as well
If you want to know more about all the traditions concerning Polish wedding have a look at this website.
We put the first pictures online. They are far from complete as we did not receive the pictures of the photographer yet but you already can have a look at some pictures made by me and the guest here.
More pictures and BIG news will follow soon so stay tuned!
Cycle the world,
Marc and Magda Steigenga