End of August seems to be the new wedding season. On our way to the house of our friend, the bride-to-be we passed three “wedding cars”, those with the far too expensive flower decoration (Remind me to use a humble donkey to get to my own wedding, if it ever takes place).
Weddings as festivities score top marks on environmentally hostile celebration list. Lots of useless plastic and cloth decoration, just to make sure that the world is aware of the bride’s home location. Needless to mention that all the guests were frequent in that very house for the past 10 years the least, so no need for signposting…
In this celebration of modernity, some traditions were kept. The urban monster of modern Greek culture did not swallow them all.
The bride’s girlfriends helped her put on her wedding gown while singing (very badly) traditional wedding songs preparing the bride for the first wedding night… You know the stories about the snake that goes into the cave!
All the unmarried girlfriends got the chance to find out which one would be married first, by writing their name on the sole of the bride’s shoe. Whichever would get erased first is the lucky one. I refused to let luck dominate my life so I asked for my name to be on the upper part of the shoe meaning.. no contact to the floor. But knowing my friends reputation of dancing many nights away… I was sure that no names would be legible by dawn.
The rest of the wedding followed the bourgeois rituals of Thessaloniki’s middle class.
The ceremony took place on the church yard depriving the eager of all religious warmth. New dresses and designer shoes where on display without the annoying singing of the priest. I was the only one without my hair professionally done. That combined with its pink colour deprived me from much of the “desired” networking.
Ice cream sorbet was distributed to keep the guests cool while waiting for the necessary evil (the actual wedding ceremony) to finish. The nasty organisers included stone hard sweets in the rice that was thrown to the couple, that only by some miracle avoided concussion.
The reception was set in a magnificent garden with a swimming pool. One of those my academic salary will never be able to afford. But no worries. I won’t miss much… the food was not exactly memorable (thank God cause I would end up with nightmares).
Not being a banker was a real issue at this wedding. Since the couple both work in a bank all their guests were bankers. The first question after what’s your name, was not “what do you do?” but “Which branch are you in?”. My non-banking nature was a real bore to them and soon they lost interest in me turning to a fellow banker to discuss credit cards and loans.
Suddenly the bride decided to incorporate the Hollywood introduced tradition of throwing the bouquet (obviously not the original one, but the one specially made to waste on single friends). Stupid me went with the bunch.
And the bouquet fell with force on my head.
I was supposed to catch it, but it caught me instead… by surprise. I wonder what that is supposed to mean.
The jealous eyes of all the single girls were on me. How could I apologize?
So I went to hide behind my wine glass.
Finally a cute guy in purple shirt came to congratulate me. Who said weddings are not a nice place for fashionable acquaintances?
Weddings as festivities score top marks on environmentally hostile celebration list. Lots of useless plastic and cloth decoration, just to make sure that the world is aware of the bride’s home location. Needless to mention that all the guests were frequent in that very house for the past 10 years the least, so no need for signposting…
In this celebration of modernity, some traditions were kept. The urban monster of modern Greek culture did not swallow them all.
The bride’s girlfriends helped her put on her wedding gown while singing (very badly) traditional wedding songs preparing the bride for the first wedding night… You know the stories about the snake that goes into the cave!
All the unmarried girlfriends got the chance to find out which one would be married first, by writing their name on the sole of the bride’s shoe. Whichever would get erased first is the lucky one. I refused to let luck dominate my life so I asked for my name to be on the upper part of the shoe meaning.. no contact to the floor. But knowing my friends reputation of dancing many nights away… I was sure that no names would be legible by dawn.
The rest of the wedding followed the bourgeois rituals of Thessaloniki’s middle class.
The ceremony took place on the church yard depriving the eager of all religious warmth. New dresses and designer shoes where on display without the annoying singing of the priest. I was the only one without my hair professionally done. That combined with its pink colour deprived me from much of the “desired” networking.
Ice cream sorbet was distributed to keep the guests cool while waiting for the necessary evil (the actual wedding ceremony) to finish. The nasty organisers included stone hard sweets in the rice that was thrown to the couple, that only by some miracle avoided concussion.
The reception was set in a magnificent garden with a swimming pool. One of those my academic salary will never be able to afford. But no worries. I won’t miss much… the food was not exactly memorable (thank God cause I would end up with nightmares).
Not being a banker was a real issue at this wedding. Since the couple both work in a bank all their guests were bankers. The first question after what’s your name, was not “what do you do?” but “Which branch are you in?”. My non-banking nature was a real bore to them and soon they lost interest in me turning to a fellow banker to discuss credit cards and loans.
Suddenly the bride decided to incorporate the Hollywood introduced tradition of throwing the bouquet (obviously not the original one, but the one specially made to waste on single friends). Stupid me went with the bunch.
And the bouquet fell with force on my head.
I was supposed to catch it, but it caught me instead… by surprise. I wonder what that is supposed to mean.
The jealous eyes of all the single girls were on me. How could I apologize?
So I went to hide behind my wine glass.
Finally a cute guy in purple shirt came to congratulate me. Who said weddings are not a nice place for fashionable acquaintances?
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