Hungarian wedding traditions, habits 1

Many many years ago in the rural community, everything has the right place and the right time. It matters what time the civil wedding ceremony was, what time the church wedding and even it matters what is the right time for the march of the wedding. In the rural community, the wedding guests often started to dance on the way to the church. Those who were not invited to celebrate the prospective spouses were standing near to the march and often accompanied the guests to the church. They were called peepers and sometimes they got some scone and beverage as the tradition required.

Everything got the orders including the bestowal and an order of what the gift should be. Cake, cookies, potions, flour, sugar and even hen. 

It was very important that the civil wedding ceremony comes first and then the church ceremony, no matter what, this is the order.

In these years the tradition includes the girl requests. The night before the wedding day the fiancé and his relatives decorated the car or the chariot and with musical accompaniment, they arrived at the girl’s house with a cock. The bride and her family, friends gave a hen to the fiance’s family next to the hen but only for the third time as the fiancé did not accept an old chicken nor a baby chicken. If the cock desired the hen then it was the sign of the godsend, lucky and plenty of children in the future of the spouses.

Paranymph was the main character of the wedding who amused the guests in those days, but nowadays this function goes to the master of ceremonies. Sometimes they represents the old traditions but today there are other kind of programs and habits.

After the official ceremony the wedding dance comes and during the dance the guests put money in a hat that was given to the fresh spouses. In case to gather more money for the spouses there was a so-called crazy bride dance that means one man from the guests dressed as a bride and danced, entertained the other guests for some small money that was also given to the spouses. It was easier to start a new life together with some money as these weddings were not cheap.

Until the 19th century, there was a ceremony called "bride laying". This meant so much for the community as a religious habit. If the sheet was sanguinary then it has proven that the bride gave her virginity to his husband.
After the ceremony, comes the ”knot of hair making”. Somebody from the relatives make a bun for the girl and until her first child was born they called her kimmer.

Nowadays weddings are totally different, maybe in the villages far from the city center some of the ceremonies are held with good old traditions but these are not common.
As the saying goes: ”There is no accounting taste”


Source : Secret Stories
Source of pictures : Fortepan, Pixabay