Eastern Slovak wedding traditions

I will try to write everything that may be expected from you or you are likely to be surprised by, for further details please visit http://slovak-wedding-traditions.com/

Before the wedding

Groom and bride have few activities before the wedding, for example someone from groom’s family has to ask brides’ parents for the hand officially. This is the part to which only closest family is invited, so you may relax and come directly to the wedding ceremony in church. Please be there at least 10 min. before the scheduled time as it is expected that you greet everyone and get seated. It may happen that there is another wedding before, so please follow the instructions from Janie.

During the wedding ceremony in church

Everything will be in Slovak, but you would receive flyer with translation. Please be patient with us even though you would not understand, the ceremony would be no longer than 30 min.

After the wedding ceremony in church

After the ceremony, the wedding guests line up to congratulate the wedding couple and personally give their best wishes as well as some flowers to the bride. This would take some time as we have more  than hundred guests, please do not go away, the bus that would transport you to the wedding party venue will be waiting and leaving right after all guests are congratulate us. We will be leaving first in a car and your bus will follow us. Again please follow instructions from Janie.

Wedding party

We will be greeted by the official of the venue and at this stage a plate is broken which the newlyweds have to sweep up. This symbolizes their cooperation and working together as a couple. The bride has to be extra careful as she has to get all the broken pieces, which represent children that the groom will have outside of the marriage. Also the tradition is that the male members of both families try to kick the pieces around since they want the groom to have ‘fun’. After this the bride is carried into the party hall by her husband (he he, I am especially waiting to see how Robert, who is lighter than me, would carry me).

There are many small traditions during the wedding party, but do not worry you are expected just to drink, dance and enjoy yourself. The only part where you are expected to participate is Midnight dance. This tradition would start with the dance of best man around the bottle and all single (not married) guys are welcomed to join. When the bottle falls all guys have to drink from it. Bridesmaid has to try to capture the bottle – to stop eligible guys from partying and make them thing about settling down. Again all single women are welcomed to join. 

When the dance is finished the bride would come already dressed up in the traditional folks dress and bridal dance would start. Every guest is honoured with a dance with the newlyweds, the so called bridal dance. Dancers encircle the newlyweds. The tradition is that guests pay for this dance. It is not an enormous amount of money; everybody pays how much they want (a paper note is most common). This money is usually collected by the eldest aunt or uncle into a covered bowl, who also offers a drink and small present and later used by newlyweds for a start of their married life.

After all guests danced with the bride single men try to capture some part of her dress (usually a boot) and the groom has to rescue her. If they manage to capture something the best man has to negotiate the release of item. Usually they exchange it for bottle or two:). After this part there are no other traditions and the guests are free to enjoy themselves till the morning.

Wedding presents

It is not customary to give wedding presents and we also do not expect any. The tradition in our part of the country is to give a card with some money to the groom. This card can be given at any point of the wedding party, group of people usually gathers around the couple to have a chat as it is quite hard to keep up with so many people during the wedding. Again, this should not be enormous amount of money, everybody pays how much they want. We already appreciate that you would spend a lot of money to come to our wedding and your presence is the nicest gift we can get.