Contrasting Nuptials

THE SHORT VERSION

The average British wedding (of those I’ve attended) goes like this: 11am-ish - church ceremony (listening to how God is great and singing hymns for the better part of an hour) or registry office for 20 minutes; reception at hotel / restaurant or other venue (with speeches by the Groom, Best Man and Father of the Bride); a few hours to recuperate; evening party with a DJ or live band - Attendance for the whole day: +/- 250; average kicking-out time (fajront): 2 to 3 a.m.

The only Serbian wedding I’ve seen went like this: 1pm-ish – huge big-top circus-style tent for lunch; civil ceremony performed in the tent; a short drive to the local church and an equally short religious ceremony (with candles and chanting and no hymns); a painfully long, horn-beeping drive of a convoy of cars through Mačva and Šabac; return to the big-top, but not before a short competitive sprint among fit and able males along the way; late lunch/early supper; musical performer after musical performer, dancing and rakija into the night and the next day (I suspect, but I had to leave) - Attendance for the whole day (and that was only day one): +/- 800; average kicking-out time (fajront): 6 to 7 a.m. the day after next.

THE RAMBLE

After 20 minutes of fruitlessly trying to find the street leading to that bloody big bridge we kept seeing (which in the end turned out to be a footbridge!), we finally got out of Mitrovica (Sremska) and crossed the Sava towards Šabac. The driving in that part of Serbia is good: long, flat, straight, new-tarmac roads with light traffic. But at that particular spot lies what seems to be the biggest village in the world – Noćaj: it just goes on and on and on, and coppers lurk around every other bend, armed with speed guns…

Having finally left Noćaj without being fined for speeding (bonus!), we hit our destination: Glušci – the village that seems to have the most urban looking corner bar in Vojvodina. Once in the village, we had no doubt that we’d hit our mark – the colossal tent and mountain of cars kind of gave it away.

“Koja su tvoja kola?” (Which is your car?), asked an angry looking man brandishing several small towels.

“Taj krš Reno sa volanom na pogresnoj strani” (That Renault banger with the steering wheel on the wrong side).

The angry man jogged off towards the car and tied a pink towel to the wing mirror, thus identifying the car as belonging to the wedding party.

We approached the wedding area and were greeted with three kisses by the parents of the groom (the bride’s parents were nowhere to be seen). Handing over our gift to the ‘present master’, we noted that our names and details of the gift we’d brought were added to the list he was compiling – a list that details exactly who brought what and is often read aloud at Serbian weddings just so everyone knows who’s generous and who’s from Pirot.

We entered the tented area and were seated by another usher, one whose smile belied his obvious frustration at being tasked with the job of seating a potential 1,000 guests.

I ordered a rakija and mineral water (normalno) and was proffered an entire bottle of both all to myself. Ekstra!

The set-up seemed pretty haphazard – no separation of guests of bride or groom; no ‘ranked’ tables for immediate families, etc. There was a ‘top table’ though, which was elevated and faced the rows of packed benches. At it sat the bride and groom, the best man and maid of honour (kum & kuma), the bridesmaids and parents of the groom (the bride’s parents were still nowhere to be seen).

Looking around, I noticed that I wasn’t the only guest to have opted for a suit, but I was certainly in the minority – the dress code was… well it seemed there wasn’t one (some wore jeans and t-shirts, others wore formal gowns and suits, a couple even wore those atrocious pink or purple towelling tracksuits that are so popular among the turbo-folk fashion conscious in Serbia).

Just as I was pondering the logistical nightmare of feeding so many people, lunch was served. An army of helpers made their way through the throng of guests serving course after course after course of the traditional lunch: watery soup with noodles (noodles imported from Austria apparently – bit fancy), followed by boiled meat, carrots and parsnips with horseradish; Sarma (rolled leaves of pickled cabbage filled with mince and rice) accompanied by strips of fatty bacon; followed by roast piglet and roast lamb; followed by an assortment of cakes, coffee and more rakija / pelinkovac or similar.

The mind boggles at the sheer magnitude of food and drink dished out during the course of the two-day celebration…

Following lunch, Andrea and I took a wander around the grounds, where we found a farmyard occupied by the cooking team (volunteer neighbours of the groom’s family) and their various pots and cauldrons. They were busily washing dishes and boiling more beef. Further behind was a pig sty (that I presume was now short a few wee piglets), a cattle shed and an orchard: a sizeable homestead indeed.

Upon our return to the tent, we caught the end of the civil ceremony and I watched as the bride, accompanied by her maids, dizzily greeted every single guest in the tent with a handshake and three kisses (hope she had plenty of lip balm on hand).

As the bride continued her kissing frolic around the tent, the first band of the day took to the stage. Unsurprisingly, the music was not really to my taste, but the singer seemed to be quite good at yodelling Lepa Brena songs and the band were equally adept at strumming a ‘tune’.

A few of the guests felt the need to dance, but thankfully my usual overindulgence at lunch had provided me with an excellent excuse to remain parked on my rumbling rear. It was at that point that a Roma band turned up, armed with a tuba, bass, violin and trumpet. After a few moments of consultation, though, they were turned away.

With the civil ceremony completed and duly celebrated, it was time to head off to the local church… in a convoy of cars that must have numbered 60 at least – with probably 80 per cent of the drivers functioning somewhat under the influence at breakneck speeds, horns beeping, towelled wing mirrors flailing. Some of the cars even had bedspreads or blankets tied to their windscreens (covering the wipers) and the main wedding cars had their bonnets draped in the crested Serbian flag and their roofs adorned with flower arrangements, and also boasted blankets covering their windscreen wipers.

Thankfully, for those of us not wishing to drive too much, the church was just a mile or so down the road and all cars arrived without incident.

The Church just outside of Glušci (if anyone knows what it’s called please let me know) is a beautiful Serbo-Byzantine style building with distinct red and cream hoops. However, it was probably built to cope with a congregation of 50 and not 500: be-blanketed cars were strewn across the church lawn all the way to the gates of the cemetery, which was spared utilisation thanks only to its low wall. The frescoed church itself was packed to the rafters – standing room only – and it wasn’t much better out on the steps and in the courtyard.

I noticed that the gypsy band that had been turned away earlier had now invaded the church gazebo and were providing ample and appropriate musical accompaniment to add a spring to the steps of the huge wedding party.

With the crowd outside tapping their feet to the gypsy orchestra, inside the church crowns were being placed on the heads of both the bride and groom. Various candles were passed ceremoniously around under the guidance of the priest, who was now speaking in tongues (a bit like Robert De Niro at the end of the Cape Fear remake), before the ceremony came to an end and the convoy set off on the road again.

‘Great,’ I thought, ‘a quick drive back to the tent and on with the next course and maybe some better music.’ I was severely mistaken.

Instead of turning off for the village, the convoy headed on through the Serbian countryside, horns beeping, towels flapping, engines revving. We passed nondescript village after village, informing the applauding, waving locals on the street benches that the marriage had been confirmed.

Our meandering route eventually took us to the town of Šabac, but instead of pausing for breath we immediately headed off in the other direction.

We passed through one village that I presume must be under the control of the Serbian Iron Mongers’ Mafia (how else would one explain the huge ornamental gates constructed in front of almost every one of the otherwise modest homes?) before coming to a halt in the next village. Our 100-car motorcade blocked the road entirely and everybody got out to dance a ‘kolo’ with the inhabitants of one of the homes.

The people we were visiting, I now discovered, were the previously conspicuously absent parents of the bride – who I was astounded to discover were forbidden from attending the first day of the wedding ceremony (perhaps, quite logically once upon a time, to prevent the bride’s father from ‘interfering’ with the consummation of the vows).

After a few dances and a profusion of kisses in front of the bride’s home, the wedding party finally headed back to the venue (with soar behinds after two-hours of driving), but not before yet another pause at the top of the street.

This pause was not to dance a kolo or greet neighbours, but rather so that all fit and able young males could line-up and compete in a sprint to the tent. The point of the sprint remains a mystery to me (perhaps to adjudge who’s the speediest bachelor), but the winner received a quilt and bed linen for his troubles.

The menu for the early dinner was the same as it had been for the lunch, and was just as good the second time around.

The daytime band with blonde singer had now been replaced by another band playing similar music but with a male lead. We drank and were merry. A third musical act took to the stage. This one included an electric violin which, for me, was the highlight of the evening. His 15-minute solo mesmerised all the guests and I was heartily impressed with his ability to continue playing with so many 1,000-dinar notes stuffed under the strings of his instrument.

It was whilst listening to his angelically devilish tunes and topping-up my rakija glass that I turned to Andrea and said “nikada necu napustiti Srbiju” (I’ll never leave Serbia). I think she was disappointed, ali jebi ga.

The party was beginning to reflect the amount of alcohol consumed. More and more revellers were taking to the dance floor, the happy couple included; waiters were busily topping up glasses and replacing empty rakija and pelinkovac bottles; queues were forming outside the toilets; men with spare shirts tied to their backs were appearing and late guests were turning up all the time.

Sadly for me, it was a Sunday and work duties forced me to cut short my first Serbian wedding experience.

But I am already looking forward to the next one.   

Thanks, congratulations and best wishes for the future to Nenad & Jelena Stanić.