Weddings...

People get married all over the world. People party at weddings all over the world, but no culture on this planet has weddings like the Romanians have and there's nothing to be proud of. Maybe Serbians, Bulgarians and some others around us have something similar but today it's about us. "The blessed" nation known all over the world for...

You might have met Romanians, you might have talked with Romanians, you might have heard about their reputation, because lets face it we have a bad one for good reasons, especially in Europe, but you probably haven't went to a Romanian wedding. Me either. I've been invited a few times before but haven't honored the invitations yet simply because I am not in tune at all with what a Romanian wedding is all about.

Today I got another invitation though. From a school colleague, but not even a high-school one. He called me and invited me to his wedding and also sent me the invitation via whatsapp. Yes, whatsapp. Now, besides the fact that I haven't talked to this guy in years and we haven't been friends in school either I have another reason why I won't be a part of his wedding and that's the story of the post.

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The part with the church of a wedding is pretty much the same in my country as in your country but what comes after is totally different. I've seen weddings in Germany and I've seen weddings in Norway. None of them can "outperform" a Romanian one. In our case it's all about opulence. And it's also some kind of a bank loan that you get from your guests. Which in my opinion is pathetic.

To make yourself an idea about a Romanian wedding you should know that in most of the cases there are minimum 100 persons invited to a big restaurant that inside looks like a palace ready to host kings all around the world. The party begins at about 8-9 PM and lasts up to about 5 AM, the wedding dress and suit costs a ton of money and you can't come wearing jeans, the traditional music that is "definitely a must" to such wedding costs around €5,000 and sometimes way more and the gifts that guests come with can fit an envelope.

Yes, in my weird country wedding guests at a wedding offer money to the fresh married couple as a gift and that's what I was referring to as a loan. All that fun is not for free, you kind of pay for it. They do that because they will invite them as well to their wedding and that's how they ensure themselves some "fresh money" to start the marriage. It's the circle of money. So you know in the envelope the sum is starting from around €100 per person and in the rich cases can go up to tens of thousands.

How can I, who doesn't like parties at all recently and especially long ones, who doesn't like wearing suits, who doesn't like hanging with unknown people and dance with them like I should at such event and who doesn't like giving free money "as part of a tradition" to participate in something like this? Not in a thousand years. I know that's the "traditional way" of getting married and we have a long history doing that but no thanks. For me a wedding is much more than this and if I will ever get married I would definitely not do it like that.

I appreciate this school mate of mine for taking his chance with me but if I managed to stay away from such weddings for decades I don't think I will change that this year. Either they change their mindset towards this type of celebrations or I will always have to politely say NO THANKS. But, how are weddings in your part of the world, is there anything weird or that you don't like about them and would share in a comment?

Thanks for attention and have a great evening!
Adrian