Ynske, 17 oktober 2008
Polen , czestochowa

Not going Dutch!

Hello everybody,

Some of you might wonder what I am doing, now I have returned from India. Well, I can more or less tell you that I just keep on traveling. This time I ended up in Poland for a week.

It was not that I was swamped in work at the time that the invitation reached my ears. Nor did I really believe that I would be the proud owner of a nice job any time soon (although one never knows...). Reason enough to say yes to my old Polish housemate (Konrad) of good Indian times, when he invited me for a wedding of his cousin in his birth town, Czestochowa, Poland. Add on to that, I DID study anthropology and as some of you probably know, marriage is a ritual in which anthropologist took and still take great interest. Of course, as a good anthropologist without job perspectives as yet, I decided to take my friend up on the offer and be a participant observer of a true Polish wedding.

I have heard it so often and we as Dutch even joke about it, but when it comes to comparing a Dutch wedding to a Polish wedding we indeed are stingy! Let me describe very shortly a typical Dutch wedding:
A typical Dutch wedding, as far as I know, lasts only 1 day. Somewhere in the morning the couple goes, after being married before the law, to the church for the ceremony. When the “I do’s” have been exchanged, a nice lunch follows together with the intimate crowd that was a witness of the ceremony.
Before the evening program starts, the couple eats a quick dinner. The evening programm usually starts with a reception. People who come for the reception get to congratulate the couple and their parents with this joyful event. After the reception a band or DJ starts to play music until it is time to go. Sometimes a late evening dinner is offered to the remaining guests before they will (try to) make their way home. Sometimes not.
In the Netherlands it is possible to be only invited to someone’s reception which usually only lasts 2 hours. You are given the opportunity to congratulate the couple and their parents, drink a drink, and maybe eat some snacks but not a full meal until someone announces that reception time is over. If you have only been invited for the reception, you will be requested to leave the party. Usually people who are only invited for the reception are acquaintances of the couple with whom they have no emotional tie (like colleagues, people from down the street, kind of unknown family members etc.).

The Polish wedding I witnessed was different in a couple of ways. First of all, the wedding would last 2 days, instead of just one meager Dutch day. Second, it seemed that a Polish wedding has some typical little rituals. And third there is no division between the kind of guests: Either you are all welcome or you are not welcome at all! Let me describe you bits and pieces of the Polish wedding I went to:

Saturday early afternoon. I pushed myself into a dress and got my hair dressed by the local hair dresser, another 5 minutes of make up and we are all ready for the wedding. When we arrive at the bride’s house, a little orkestra plays music in the garden and some lost family members dwell around the house. No sign of the bride or the groom. Konrad explains me:
Before church or any other ritual, the groom has to come and pick up the bride. This, however, is not so easy. The bride is of great value because she is beautiful and loved by her family. As is the rule in such cases, things of great value can be bought for a special price and thus the groom has to buy the bride with bottles of vodka. The bride is usually sold by her brothers and sisters, but in this case the bride had no brothers or sisters. Therefore, Konrad and his sister, both closest kin to the bride except for her own parents, were to sell the bride to the groom. To stop the car of the groom from driving up the drive way, they placed a little table in the middle of the drive way and waited patiently for the car of the groom to arrive.
As the car finally arrived, the groom got out and walked up to Konrad and his sister, while I was standing further down the drive-way on a safe distance, together with other family members. It seemed that the bride was sold for a good price as both Konrad and his sister managed to get 2 bottles of vodka each, plus an additional bottle for me to take with me to Holland.
I am not sure if this was considered a good price. Though, it seems unlikely to me that a groom drives a hard bargain over his bride's price. Something of great value usually receives a good price. Especially when one considers the fact that the price is to be paid in vodka bottles which are seen in abundance during the whole wedding. A bottle of vodka more would not make a difference. My Russian friend, however commented after she heard the abovementioned bargain ritual, that Polish girls must be cheap commodity. She said that in Russia a similar ritual was done but the main difference was that the groom has to pay a bottle of vodka for every step he needs to take in order to reach the bride. I guess I would be a good catch for a Russian or Polish groom, because I am pretty sure my brothers and sister would give me away for free as they don't like vodka much in the first place.
Either way, my friend and his sister were pleased with the bargain: they managed to get 5 bottles of vodka, though they had estimated to get only 4. All bottles were put in a bag hanging on the baby carriage of Konrads sister's daughter. The carriage almost tipped backwards under the weight of so many bottles of vodka, forcing the little girl to sit still and maintain balance. As for the groom: he now had gained access to his bride.

Some more ceremonies followed, as the blessing of the couple by family, and of course the (boring) church ceremony. When everybody finally arrived at the hotel where the party was to take place, some typical Polish rituals were performed as taking a bite from a special baked bread with salt and smashing champagne glasses after the champagne was drunk.
The party was going to start: All the guests sat down for dinner.
The formula for this Polish wedding was: eat & drink, dance, eat & drink, dance, eat& drink, dance, drink, dance, drink, dance, eat & drink, dance. One small problem for me was that I do not know how to ballroom dance, which was exactly the kind of dancing that was going on. A low cut dress didn’t help much either. I kept pulling up my dress trying to avoid that my bra was about to be seen by everybody while some older Polish gentleman was trying his best to keep me dancing. I must admit, because of the numerous times I slammed away another small glass of vodka, I became lesser and lesser concerned about my dancing skills or my exposed bra. As a result of the abundance of drinks and food people last quite some time. I however went to my hotel bed around 2.00 am.

The next morning we all had breakfast at 11:00. At least 10 different meat variations were displayed for the guests to eat away the hangover, if one had a hangover at all. Although I drunk quite some bit of vodka the night before, I didn’t have a hangover. The trick is to keep on eating when one drinks. Something we Dutch only half get, although I am sure someone is willing to argue the value and meaning of "bitterballen" on this particular subject.
Anyway, we walked and hung around the restaurant until 14:00. A small repetition of the previous day followed: Eat & drink, dance. Eat & drink, dance. And again eat & drink, dance. Although the second day was considered a beer day, vodka was again found on each table. When we finally left at around 18:00, completely full fed, the bride and groom gave us leftovers from all the diners and,… a bottle of vodka.

Personally I was amazed by the abundance of everything. So much food and drinks, and that for 2 days in a row. Now compare that again with Dutch traditional wedding were half of the invited guests get to stay 2 hours and then are requested to leave! I do have to mention that the bride came from a well to do family and that not ALL Polish weddings last 2 days and are given this much attention to food.
I don't think I will end up marrying anyone Polish or Russian but I do not mind their style of wedding. And eventhough Dutch are known for their excellent bargaining skills, I am pretty sure my brothers and sister would have no problems giving up on their dutch cultural features for once. They would happily get rid of me without asking for a single bottle of vodka!

Naar Ynske in Polen bellen kan nu wel heel goedkoop met HalloBuitenland.nl