I remember it was supposed to be a normal wedding of normal people. The bride is a musician with Tatar roots, the groom is a human rights activist with slightly fat roots, but overall everything is decent. As a result, the tent looks like a circus, and the flamenco dancer came already on fumes and just looks bad. The wedding has a vague oriental slant, so for the second hour one howl is replacing another, and even the newlyweds don’t know who needs to be killed in order to finally set the funk. Closer to the morning, the Veuve Clicquot magnum will explode, and the groom will become allergic - apparently to everything at once.
Wedding for others
A wedding has always been a difficult task. But before no one had even a shadow of doubt about its necessity. Grooms all over the world voluntarily underwent various unpleasant trials: they went on a hike, did not eat or drink for several days before the wedding. Be glad that the most difficult test is now choosing cufflinks. However, today many couples find it difficult to formulate the meaning of going to the registry office. Therefore, relatives and married friends take on the explanatory work. You roll your eyes at first, of course, but after a while you roll up in celebration. There may be two reasons. The first is quite understandable: you just want someone to finally leave you behind. The second is irrational: one cannot underestimate the influence of the magical formulas “it’s the way it’s supposed to be” and “how to look people in the eye.”
In the post-Soviet era, a wedding is a meme and an epic in one bucket. It is rare if it is organized the way the newlyweds want. Even if you call a supposedly normal host, there is always a chance that the program will include an unexpected competition and in the end everyone will have to drink a mixture of whiskey, champagne and beer from a giant burning glass. And keep in mind: no matter how advanced the party is, at some point the DJ will have to turn off the Japanese techno and “play something normal.” And it’s good if the group “Mushrooms” turns out to be “normal” for a cousin from Tyumen.
Question of the week: Why does a man need a wedding?
For most women, a wedding is the second most important event after the birth of a child. What do men think about the ceremony, which plays such an important role in a woman’s life?
Vadim Petukhov, astrologer (divorced)
For the first time, in his youth, a man still attaches a certain sacred meaning to the wedding ceremony. All subsequent times, or in adulthood, a man needs a wedding only as a desire to support women’s weaknesses and satisfy the bride’s whim. In general, in a wedding, recording the exact time of marriage is very important. If you get married at the right time, then there will be no need for a next time.
Alexander Pyatikop, deputy of the Kaliningrad District Council (married)
Psychologically, men need a wedding just as much as women. Because it has already entered into your consciousness that you are responsible for your family. From my point of view, it is important that this is a memorable event, so that in 10 years you will remember not only how much was spent on the wedding. So I had a student wedding: we gathered at home, drank champagne, no honeymoon trips. And she was remembered from the photographs that were taken. Photographs are the most precious pleasure. And I earned money for the wedding in construction teams. Therefore, the celebration itself is, I think, a matter of taste. You can do weddings differently. Many people often think that if there is no muzzle in the salad, then the wedding was in vain. This is all a question of the level of culture of the people who are invited to weddings. But this event, of course, is joyful for everyone.
Vladimir Sukhov, head of the literary department of the Kaliningrad Regional Drama Theater (married)
A man doesn't need a wedding. He agrees to the wedding only to please the bride. The man at this ceremony reminds me of a teddy bear tied to a wedding car. He tolerates any kind of bullying and makes cute faces, just so that this pleasure ends quickly. You can’t even drink normally – a drunk teddy bear is too much.
Ilya Shumanov, Head of the Consumer Market Department of the Economic Development Department of the Committee on Economics, Finance and Control of the Kaliningrad Administration (very married)
A man wants to please his future wife and organizes a special event for her. I have come across cases where newlyweds, when holding a wedding, wanted to please their relatives.
Ilya Khvostov, musician (not married)
There are different types of people. Some people don’t need a wedding at all, the main thing is to be with your loved one. Others, especially those with a lot of money, want pathos. There are people who organize small, modest weddings only for family and friends, and not for friends of friends and acquaintances.
For me, a wedding is very important, because it has a family atmosphere, and it is a big event for parents. Congratulations, toasts, communication with others and positive emotions - all this is very cool!
You can get married without witnesses and other formalities, but a wedding is a mega-party! That's why a man needs a wedding!
Andrey Kolesnik, State Duma deputy from Kaliningrad (married)
I'm not going to get married yet (laughs)
. As for the necessity of a wedding and its splendor, I think that this is all individual, different for everyone. I can joke that the more magnificent the wedding, the more scandalous the divorce. There were also such stories. I believe that this is, firstly, a question of funding opportunities. We sometimes like to show off, instead of, for example, donating money for an apartment. But some people like it. I think that we still need to approach this rationally. If there is an opportunity to save money on new housing, on expansion, then it is better to spend it on this and have a more modest wedding. If a person has good financial resources, then, probably, in order to please his wife, the groom can be patient.
Sergey Rudko, chief engineer of cable television, Baltiysk (married)
A wedding is a gift to a woman, exalting her and showing her importance. For other purposes, a man doesn’t need a wedding for nothing – it’s an extra expense. But you won’t go to any lengths for your beloved.
Alexander Lamzin, head of the capital construction department of BALTKRAN OJSC (married)
For a man, a wedding is usually a way to please his beloved. Preparing the holiday, to be honest, was not the most exciting activity for me. But I remember with pleasure the day itself: seeing Marina in a wedding dress, the moment we were declared husband and wife, the joy of my parents and friends, the fun at the banquet.
Michael
49 years old, teacher
Have you seen the film “Courier”? This is roughly about my acquaintance with my first wife. Her parents were dissatisfied with me to such an extent that immediately after graduation they pushed the topic of a wedding in order to somehow ennoble our relationship. The bride wanted to quickly become an adult and dress. I wanted them to leave me alone. Consensus! Of course, the wedding became a demonstration performance of the mother-in-law and father-in-law - people “with opportunities”. I felt like a loser, but I guess I was, since my wedding was at the expense of the bride’s parents.
Now my son lives in London, married to a Chinese woman. While discussing the wedding, they wondered whose family would be more offended. The girl has terribly traditional parents: the fact that her son-in-law is white is enough for them. As a result, the guys quietly signed their names during the lunch break - and they did the right thing. The ex-wife is still upset that the children “didn’t have a holiday.”
What tasks should your wedding solve?
Once you have decided on your goal, think: what should the wedding be like in order for this goal to be achieved? What is most important, what tasks need to be solved at the event? You can get vivid impressions by flying together to a new place, or by organizing something unusual in your city.
And you can arouse admiration and envy without holding a wedding at all, but simply by having a professional photo shoot in an exclusive wedding dress in some chic place.
If the goal is to introduce relatives, you will have to gather everyone together and organize a feast and program so that everyone communicates with everyone. You can also have fun with friends in different ways, the main thing here is that by the word “fun” everyone understands the same thing.
Sergey
28 years old, marketer
I quite consciously decided to get married, but I didn’t think that the wedding would go so wrong. The choice of ring was already painful: all the options were either petty or too expensive. I acted beyond my means - then it turned out that my wife and mother found out the cost and condemned my gypsy scope.
A week before, a slight panic began: where did I even get in? Against her background, I had a normal party at the bachelor party. At the party, to put it mildly, I was late and arrived straight to the registry office - washed, but completely disassembled. While I was hanging out, my poor fiancée was nervous that I had run away and started drinking sparkling wine early in the morning. At the registry office, Masha was already drunk, and the ceremonial glass from the receptionist finished her off (but it revived me). The witness noticed our torment and offered a path to cheerfulness - in vain they refused. In short, everything was so strange that it was even funny. It would be wiser to spend all the money on a honeymoon - then it would definitely last a month, and not six days.
The painting is separate, the banquet is separate. pros
If the newlyweds decided that the painting and the wedding should take place on different days?
What are the positive aspects of this:
- This is an excellent option for those who do not like traditional arrivals of guests, ransoms, loaves and icons at their parents’ house, and other attributes of traditional wedding fun. If guests arrive immediately for the banquet, the newlyweds will have a much better chance of celebrating exactly the way they like and want.
- This is a great option for themed weddings with costumes. Having canceled the ride around the city and the boring wait at the registry office, the newlyweds give the guests the opportunity to calmly prepare and put their costumes in order.
- Wedding dresses can be worn twice, which, of course, will greatly please the bride who decides to show off in a luxurious dress.
- You can also wear wedding dresses only to the banquet, then they will be at their best. Or just for painting, and celebrate the wedding itself in sports equipment, for example, in the mountains. You can also change outfits twice - for painting and separately - for the banquet. Although, of course, this option is much more expensive.
- There is no need to rush anywhere, worry about traffic jams or the beautician being late. There is an opportunity to get a good night's sleep.
Wedding for a cause
In modern secular culture, marriage is a social contract, a kind of act of trust between partners. Often this is just a legal formality and is needed “for business”: from child custody to obtaining citizenship or tax benefits. No matter how sad some may be, it must be recognized that romance is giving way to property law and prenuptial agreements. Against the background of such a change in attitude towards the essence and meaning of marriage, the process of registering it in Russia looks like a wild anachronism: no matter how hard you try to reduce the ceremony to a dry notarial procedure, you will not be able to get away from the registrar with a bouffant, who, like twenty years ago, will push a mournful speech about “the meeting of two loving hearts.”
The meaning of wedding anniversaries
An anniversary is an opportunity for you, as a couple, to take stock of your year together.
Work on errors. Become a cut above in relationships. Decide what the next year will be like, what direction to take and what problems need to be corrected in your family. An anniversary is a unique opportunity to understand the pros and cons of your own wedding and create a completely different holiday, both for yourself and for your family.
Organize a wine tasting, ride a sleigh, ride a water bus, throw a disco party. Try something radically new - recreate an Indian wedding.
By changing the theme of the holiday every year, you will bring new colors to your relationship.
Maria
30 years old, art critic
We decided to register the relationship at the registry office after four years of marriage - we wanted to be able to make important decisions if our partner ended up in the hospital, for example. I was strongly against the traditional attributes of a wedding: an expensive dress, some special restaurant, distant relatives and the inevitable ceremony. I hate everything ceremonial, especially since I saw a lot of weddings and realized that I never want to make a parade out of my feelings. She suggested that her future husband refuse the rings, but he still insisted, because it seemed like a “normal” symbol. Coincidentally, two pairs of our friends also came to the decision to get a stamp in their passports - and even signed up for the Griboedovsky registry office on the same day. We decided to join them to have fun and to feel less awkward about encountering a formal setting and rituals. What we didn’t expect was the incredible excitement around the wedding - jokes about the honeymoon, discussions about whether I would change my last name (I didn’t, so that there wouldn’t be an epic with changing a million documents), sincere wishes to give birth to a son. I think that a wedding as a phenomenon has little to do with feelings.
Why don't priests perform weddings during Lent and Easter?
Newlyweds often wonder why it is forbidden to have weddings before Easter. But for believers there is nothing incomprehensible about this - Lent imposes so many restrictions on the life of Christians that the ban on performing a wedding ceremony is quite understandable. During Lent, believers pray, take communion, confess and fast; all kinds of fun are strictly tabooed.
On a note! Lent in 2022 lasts from Monday 2 March to Saturday 18 April inclusive.
During fasting, abstinence is imposed not only on food and drink, but also on any sexual relations. It turns out that there is no point in having a wedding during Lent. Everything for which it is held - a feast for the whole world, fun, dancing, games, as well as marital intimacy of a young couple is prohibited by fasting.
Weddings are prohibited:
- On Tuesdays and Thursdays. This applies to the whole year. Orthodox Christians fast on Wednesdays and Fridays.
- On Holy Saturday before Easter. And also on all other Saturdays - these days, on the eve of Sunday, are considered by the Orthodox to be Little Easter.
- In the days preceding the twelve feasts and on the eve of the patronal feasts. You need to find out the exact dates every year - they change.
- During Easter and a week after it - on Easter week.
- The strictest ban applies to the fasts of the Great (before Easter), Petrov, Rozhdestvensky and Uspensky.
Getting married during Lent before Easter is unacceptable for Orthodox Christians. No priest will marry the newlyweds within seven weeks after the start of Lent. There are dates in the church on which wedding ceremonies are prohibited, and Lent is only part of this prohibited period.
Weddings during fasting are strictly prohibited according to the rules in all churches.
The sacrament of marriage and wedding are a joyful event that is incompatible with fasting, when people spend time in repentance and contrition for sins.
In addition, after this ritual, marital intimacy is expected, which is prohibited during fasting and abstinence is recommended.
Through the wedding ceremony, the newlyweds confirm their love on a spiritual level and become spouses.
During the sacrament, Divine grace descends on the bride and groom, which blesses the marriage and helps them remain faithful to each other.
To organize a wedding ceremony, there is a special Orthodox calendar, which is established by the highest ranks of the church and indicates on which days the event can be held.
124 so many days suitable for a wedding in 2022
For example, in 2022, out of 365 days, only 124 days are allowed for the Sacrament of Marriage.
The priests consider the most suitable days for organizing the celebration to be the Days of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God, which in 2022 fall on June 21 and November 4.
And also Krasnaya Gorka - the first Sunday after Easter - May 5th.
The name Red Hill in Rus' came from paganism, when the beginning of spring was celebrated
The bishop of the church may allow the Sacrament of Wedding to be performed during Lent, but only for an exceptional reason, for example, if the groom urgently leaves for the army or war. Such situations have occurred in church practice, but these are isolated cases.
Will they get married in church before Easter?
The search for answers among clergy has had contradictory results. Most priests tend to refuse a wedding, citing many arguments proving that this process should be postponed. However, there are people who allow a wedding to take place, but this requires compelling reasons.
Attention! It is impossible to hold a wedding ceremony within the walls of the Temple due to religious services.
Unfortunately, a wedding can be a matter of “life and death.” For example, the groom was urgently called up for military service. Then a certain request is submitted, addressed to the ruling bishop. He will consider the situation, and in exceptional cases he is able to give the green light to the priest to carry out the wedding.
