Estonian wedding traditions (Part 2)

I hope you're all having a wonderful weekend. Today I'm sharing the second part of the Estonian wedding traditions (here's part 1 in case you missed it), covering all the traditions and customs happening at the reception. 

One of the most beautiful traditions happens right at the beginning of the reception, once everyone has been seated. It's the lighting of the candle of happiness. It's a tall candle symbolizing the fire of our marriage. It's usually lit by the parents, in our case our fathers, and we should light it every year on our anniversary. Our fathers also said a toast - one of the few moments during our wedding that had me in tears.

After that it's mostly fun and games. In a traditional Estonian wedding, there are jobs/positions (for lack of a better word for it) that need to be filled. There's the Wedding Seal, The Guard of the Bride, The Wedding Stud, The Dance Father, and The Kibe Yeller to name a few. The job of the kibe yeller, for instance, is to yell "kibe!" whick means bitter in Estonian and it's a sign that the bride and groom have to kiss. The lenght of the kiss is counted outloud, and they need to extend it every time. There's also a song that everyone can sing to help provoke the kiss. The point of the song is that everything tastes bitter until the bride and groom's kiss makes it sweet. So, there was a lot of smooching going on :).
Then there's the Guard of the Bride. That is a very important job, because in an Estonian wedding, guests may steal the bride and ask the groom for "ransom". Usually, the ransom is a task the groom has to do to get his bride back. At our wedding, there was one attempt to steal the bride, but the guard did his job and caught the thieves red handed.
The photo above shows the election of the Wedding Seal, who's job is to "seal" the deal with their lips. So, when another position is filled, the wedding seal kisses him/her on the cheek to seal the deal.

Then it's time for the first dance, which in Estonia is called the Opening Waltz. My father played the music for our first dance on a concertina (for lack of a better translation), an Estonian folk instrument.

And, more games. The games played during the reception are all up to the Pulmaisa (the man running the show, so to speak), so he may do many, or just a few. His job is to start the party and keep it going. Our Pulmaisa was great, and everybody was having so much fun. There was lots of weird dancing and singing involved.

About half an hour before midnight, the cake is served. Nothing really awe inpiring here, but I just wanted to point out, that some traditions seem to be international.

And, then, at midnight it's time to pass on the bridal wreath. The bride put on a flower crown, and the groom puts on a hat, everybody sings along the song of the Bridal Wreath and the flower crown and the hat are passed on to the next couple. They are the ones most likely to be the next to marry, so they become the new bride and groom. For the bride and groom, that marks the end of their wedding day. It's also customary for the bride and groom to change clothes after that.

After that it's more dancing and playing, but the "official" part is over. A decent wedding lasts until the wee hours of the morning, of course, and ours was a very decent wedding indeed.

I hope you've enjoyed taking a peek into an Estonian wedding. I loved sharing this part of our culture with you. If you have any questions, let me know in the comments, I'd love to ellaborate.

xo Hanna

Photography by Kerli Halliste