Social Event of the Season

I've have been anticipating going to a wedding in Romania since I received my itinerary for the trip. I thought it would be one of the great cultural events on my trip. Thus I'm a little torn over the wedding I got to go to. On the one hand, I attended the "Social Event of the Year" in Romania. The wedding was between a member of the Romanian Parliament and a top model. So this was a very big deal for Romania, and I am blessed to be able to attend the wedding.

On the other hand, this was anything but a traditional wedding in Romania. It was, by far, the nicest wedding I have ever attended.

But let's start with the ceremony. The ceremony was at an Orthodox church and there were a ton of paparazzi at the wedding. There must have been 20 still cameras, 15 video cameras, and three people doing interviews. During the ceremony there was never a moment when the cameras and flashes weren't going. The ceremony was in Romanian, so I didn't understand any of it. There were three attendants for the bride and groom. Also, his godparents performed the role of best man and maid of honor. At one point they wore crowns for a while. There were four priests performing various duties throughout the ceremony, a choir up in the balcony, and they danced in a circle around the alter a few times toward the end.

Barely anyone at the church sat down during the ceremony and if you did, you missed seeing anything. Not that there were a ton of people there, but everyone else was standing. The ceremony lasted about 45 minutes and then we shook the bride and groom's hands. After that it was back to the hotel to freshen up for 15 minutes.

We then headed north out of town for the reception. It was held at the summer palace of the former dictator of Romania. There were tiki lights lining the roads, so I knew it was going to be a party.

We were dropped off in front of the biggest outdoor wedding tent you could imagine. There was a lounge area with couches, two open bars, the seating area which held 41 tables, there was a stage and dance floor, the nicest outdoor bathrooms you have ever seen (I mean nicer than some indoor bathrooms), and a kitchen area, all under the tent.

We shook hands and had a picture with the bride and groom, then mingled among a few people. We were seated and had to wait about 30 minutes for the rest of the guest to be seated. A few estimates that the group came up with: 450 - 500 guests (One of which was the President of Romania, the mayor of Bucharest, and 20 Members of Parliament), and 150 wait staff. None of us was brave enough to give an estimate on the cost.

We were served five meals through the course of the evening. They called them courses, we called them meals as each was a large plate of food. About 3:30 AM we had traditional Romanian BBQ to go with the Romanian Folk music. There were four different bands throughout the course of the evening. There was also a lady that was supposed to come in from New York to sing, but she missed her plane.

The wedding cake was to die for and even though I was completely full by that time, I still couldn't stop eating wedding cake. There were also a couple of rounds of fireworks. I'm sure I'm missing a couple of elements, but I hope you get at this point that this was a blowout of a party and the Social Event of the Year. The only thing more I could do would be to put up some pictures, but at this point I can't download them.

We got home at about 5:30AM as the party was beginning to wind down. I don't think we were border line impolite, because quite a few people had left by then.

It was certainly a great experience and one I won't have again in Romania. At least I would expect as much. It was a lot of fun to be there and I'm glad I had the opportunity.

The rest of the trip in Romania has been going well. You can certainly tell you are in Eastern Europe. There are still signs of communism every where you look. There is also progress everywhere you look. It is going to take some time and money for Romania to catch up with Western Europe, but they do have a lot going for them.

Tomorrow we are back at Parliament and have individual meetings. Then on Wednesday we travel to Munich on the way to the last stop on the trip. I have to admit that I'm getting ready to come home. I'm really looking forward to the conference, because I think it will sum up our experience. But it will be nice to be back in Billings.