It’s March and the weather is like the merry month of May. The sun is beaming down from the sky and competing with the bride and groom of the week from our city newspaper. Hardly any celebration is as enriched with rituals and gestures as a wedding ceremony. Everyone knows the throwing of the bridal bouquet. At a wedding in Bulgaria, the groom is the first to take center stage. At the beginning of a Bulgarian wedding celebration, which lasts all day, the groom is publicly shaved. Freshly shaved, he sets off for the bride’s parents’ house with his clan and a fair amount of cash. With dance, song and banknotes he courts the hand of the Holden. Sooner or later the bride’s parents soften, because there are many wedding rituals in the script of a Bulgarian marriage. Thus, the real stars of the wedding are not the bride and groom, but the witnesses. Serving them is the task of the wedding couple. The bride and groom have to fulfill their wishes throughout the wedding day. Besides the wedding dance and many toasts, there is the ritual breaking of bread. It is to be understood as a prediction, because whoever holds the larger piece of bread in his hands will later have the say in the marriage.
