Ukrainian Wedding Customs: A Guide to Traditional Celebrations

A Ukrainian wedding is a wonderful mystery with traditional dresses, lots of customs and delicious food. Most of Ukrainian wedding reception traditions are rooted in the past, despite this fact, many people still follow them. These wedding celebrations are based on traditional values that show us the model of a strong and healthy family.

Pre-Wedding Traditions

Preparation is an important part of the wedding and a bride and groom are emotionally involved in these procedures. Bachelorette party is an exciting day for brides. This day female friends of the bride come to the bride's house for singing and dancing. While singing traditional songs girls make some hair accessories with flowers that symbolize the changing of the bride's status. A Ukrainian culture implies that a woman says goodbye her free life before the wedding ceremony. Now bridesmaids just go to the restaurants or bars to celebrate 'the last day of freedom'.

Another tradition before the marriage ceremony is bachelor party for a groom and his male friends. It's also associated with dances and songs that symbolize the end of single life. A groom and his friends drink some alcohol beverage called gorilka and celebrate it all night.

Before the wedding a groom should pay an adequate ransom for his bride. Another game is when bridesmaids and relatives ask groom questions about bride's features, the details of the love story. If a groom makes a mistake, he should pay the ransom again.

Some unique wedding traditions like brining a pumpkin on a plate to a groom or his relatives means that a bride's family doesn't want this wedding, so a groom will have to look for another wife.

Blessing (Blahoslovenja)

Ukrainian wedding traditions are quite patriarchal, so a groom should visit bride's parents house to get their permission or blahoslovenje for the wedding. While asking the permission a groom or his matchmakers or svaty change bows with bride's relatives. Also, they change symbolic gifts as the sign of respect.

If bride's parents are ready for the marriage, newlyweds should kneel down and the bride's father gives his permission with an icon. A bride and groom should kiss this icon.

These wedding ceremonies show that newlyweds are family-oriented and that the opinion of the family members is very important for it. A modern wedding doesn't have this step but if you are very religious and patriarchal, you can follow this nice tradition.

Wedding Ceremony Traditions

While catholic people use left ring finger for wearing the wedding rings, Ukrainians use the right hands for these accessories. During the wedding ceremony newlyweds are changing the rings as a sing of their endless love and loyalty.

Another tradition of the wedding celebration is stepping on the special cloth called rushnik. It's a traditional embroidered cloth symbolizes of who will be the leader of the family. If a bride steps on rushnik first, she will dominate on her husband and vice versa.

Traditional Wedding Attire

A traditional Ukrainian wedding is very beautiful due to national clothes. A man dressed in a white shirt with red embroidery called vyshivanka. The same goes to the bride's wedding dress. It's a long white dress with lots of embroidery. The hair is decorated with red flowers.

Nowadays Ukrainian use some details of wedding attire in modern weddings. Embroidery is still very important since every detail of this pattern symbolizes love, devotion and loyalty. Of course, modern dresses can be shorter or they can have other details. You can wear them with high heels or even with sneakers. This way you will show you respect ancient traditions.

Korovai (Wedding Bread)

A wedding cake korovai is a traditional Ukrainian meal that decorated with sugar details, roses and other flowers made of flour. It symbolizes hospitality and the birth of the new family. It's interesting that for cooking this bread a bride invited married women who were happy in this marriage. It was a good sign that a new couple will live happily too.

If the bread was damaged during the baking, it was a bad superstition meant that the new marriage will be broken as well.

Wedding Reception and Games

The wedding day and the wedding reception have their own traditions. During the celebrations guests make newlyweds kiss by yelling the word 'bitterly' or 'gorko'. It's an old tradition to make their life happier and sweeter.

Some Ukrainian wedding traditions include kidnapping the bride while the groom should pay the ransom for his loved one to get her back. During the celebration unmarried women are dancing a lot, these traditional dances with bright cloth symbolize their desire to get married too.

Another game is guessing the gender of the future kid. You can use several ways of playing it, for example, you can hide some sheet of paper with the gender in cakes or use balloons of pink and blue colors.

Farewell and Post-Wedding Customs

The end of the celebration is always a bit sad. After single ladies dance, it's time to accompany a new wife to her home. To make in more solemn, bridesmaids start singing slow farewell songs. It symbolizes the end of unmarried free life and the start of new life and new duties.

However, post-wedding customs aren't always sad. After the ceremony in church guests start singing fan and energetic songs wishing all the best to the new family.

A Ukrainian wedding ceremony is associated with fun and even sarcastic humor. Guests often make jokes towards the newlyweds and sometimes they mock the mother-in-law and father-in-law. But these jokes are kind mostly, so nobody gets offended.

Another ancient Ukrainian tradition is untying the braid before the first night with the new husband. It's associated with the end of innocence, so the bride gets another status with it.

After the wedding night the newlyweds invited guests who were singing and dancing. It was believed that this behavior will spook off devils and will make the family's life happier.

Some Ukrainian traditions don't exist anymore. For example, back then in country villages it was necessary to check the newlyweds' bedclothes to make sure the bride was a virgin.

Regional Variations

Some wedding traditions depends on a region. For example, sometimes bridesmaids untied the bride's hair and in other regions they just cut it. The embroidery pattern is also different (sometimes it has a lot of flowers, in some regions the patterns contain birds, animals).

It's interesting that wedding traditions in different regions are blended and all together they create a beautiful mix. Nowadays some European trend impact on Ukrainian traditional values.

Modern Adaptations of Traditions

Some ancient traditions don't exist anymore since they are too conservative and not really comfortable for couples. Anyway, many Ukrainians love their country and their rich culture. They want to bring some nice traditions to the modern life.

If you want to do the same on your wedding, the best way is to buy regular smooth wedding rings (usually a bride wears a silver ring and a groom wears a golden one). It's believed that smooth rings provide a couple happy life without conflicts and troubles.

Another way to follow local traditions is buying a wedding dress with embroidery. Don't be afraid to look weird and exotic! Now it's very popular to organize photoshoots with traditional dresses and flower head accessories. You can be sure you will get lots of compliments in this outfit!

You can order a caravai and combine it with wedding cupcakes. This way you will show your hospitality.

A wedding band is an important detail of your celebration. If you want to make this day more authentic, order some traditional music and your favorite Ukrainian patriotic songs.

Even if you organize an authentic celebration, you will have to go to the Ukrainian government for the marriage registration. It's not forbidden to wear traditional clothes there. After that you can to church if you both are religious enough.

We will also give you some recommendation that will help you to make this day more interesting and to follow most of traditions with your future wife:

• Use natural clothes for your wedding outfits. Linen is the best option, especially if you are planning a summer celebration.
• Be careful with embroidery. Belarus and Russian ornaments look very similar. If your bride is Ukrainian, you can insult her this way.
• If you have enough time and skills, you can cook a caravai yourself. If you aren't sure about it, better order it. This way it will be delicious and beautiful.
• Bear in mind that modern Ukrainian women are quite emancipated and some of them are into feminism. They don't like patriarchal things, so discuss your traditional wedding with your future wife in advance.
• If you want to make it more authentic, rent a cottage in the village. You can organize a beautiful photoshoot here.
• Ukrainian weddings imply lots of flowers. Choose natural ones. Artificial flowers are associated with cemetery, so it will be a bad sign.
• Of course, local celebrations are very noisy, newlyweds invite a lot of guests. Nowadays it's quite expensive, so you can organize a calm and intimate celebration with the closest people and a photographer.
• Don't be afraid to mix different traditions and modern European trends. It will make this day even more original!
• Pay attention to dress code for your guests and relatives. If you wear a traditional linen dress and your guests wear sneakers and jeans, it won't be really harmonic.
• Back then women didn't wear bright make-up. Now you can change this thing by using red lipstick that goes very well with red hair accessories.

Thus, Ukrainian traditions for weddings are beautiful and imply a lot of local songs and dances. If you follow some of them, your wedding will be really colorful and original.