Married in Dracula Country

Hi Everyone,

My assistant Lavinia is now religiously as well as legally married. As happens in almost every country except the UK, the legal and religious ceremonies are separate. So on July 28th Lavi and Horatiu were married legally in Cluj (northern Romania). However for Lavi it was the religious ceremony that really mattered. So we knew this was going to be a big event.

There were 4 of us from the UK going to the wedding. Tony flew over mid week. My boss while I am out here, the Project Manager Iain Blackwood was already here working for two weeks and Gwyneth Venables was going to start her work on the Monday after the wedding. Since the wedding was taking place in Bran, about 200kms north of Bucuresti, I decided the easiest way of getting there was driving. So I hired a car.

As you know I drove to the Black Sea coast earlier this summer so driving in Bucuresti holds no fear for me. Well actually it does. When we drove to Constanta we left about midday on the Friday when the traffic was light and relatively easy. On this occasion Gwyneth was arriving at Otopeni airport, north Bucuresti, at 5.50pm - slap bang in the middle of rush hour. The pick up point for the hire car was in the far west of the city. This meant I had to drive through the city during the Friday rush hour.

Of course this meant that everything was travelling at 3kph at most, so there should not have been a problem. However there are two things you need to appreciate about the Romanian drivers. Firstly if a road has two lanes there are five lanes of traffic. They are forever trying to get around each other. This leads to the second point, they must get ahead as fast and as soon as possible. So if one queue is moving ever so slightly faster than another they start swopping into it, Then swopping back because the other queue is now moving faster. Then they make a new line because nothing is moving fast enough. All this is done with their hands on the horn as part of the common Bucuresti symphony.

However not only did we arrive in Bran in one piece but also about 30 minutes sooner than expected. This was, of course, due to the excellent driving skills exhibited and had nothing to do with the fact that the traffic was lighter than we were expecting for a Friday evening (once we got outside of Bucuresti).

The guest house the four of us were staying in was also the scene of the Friday evening "supper". So we entered with the meal well underway. This was to set the scene for the rest of the weekend. It was a food orgy. There was pork snitzel, sort of egg and cheese omlettes rolled up and cut up, some vegetable fritter things, sarmale (minced pork rolled up in cabbage leaves), bread, cake, chocolate cakes, home produced wine and Lavi's mother.

Back in 1981 Mrs Cobrea gave birth to lovely little Lavinia. That very same evening she started baking in preparation for her daughters wedding 26 years later! I swear she has spent most of her life - and used most of the EU butter, flour, egg and pork mountains - for this wedding. If that night there had been a nuclear holocaust, history would have recorded that bizarrely 100 people survived for 37 years in a small place called Bran in central Romania and had an obesity problem by the end of that time too!

So we went to bed that night stuffed full of fried pork, egg, vegetables, minced pork in cabbage leaves, cake, chocolate and home made wine. It is amazing we survived the night never mind actually making it to the wedding the next day.

The wedding was at 3 in the afternoon so after a late lie in we heaved our groaning stomachs out of bed and had breakfast. Well, once you start eating you just have to keep going! Across the other side of Bran village we found somewhere that served breakfast. As is often the case in Romania breakfast means eggs in a variety of ways. So Iain, Gwyneth, Tony and I decided on a different egg dish each and coffee. The coffee came and we chatted. Another coffee and we continued chatting. The sun set, rose again, set again and rose again and then on our 237th coffee the eggs arrived. Well 3 of the dishes arrived. The waitress called out the first which Tony identified as his, then Iain identified his from her description and I heard mine. So poor Gwyneth was the one left out and although we did the decent thing of waiting she said we should start. Little did she know that the sun was to set and rise 3 more times before she would see her eggs. In the meantime after consuming about half of our dishes we began to realize that these were not what we had ordered. In fact it was what had been ordered, but we had each others dishes! Sure enough when Gwyneth’s food arrived it was Tony’s order. We are still not sure what menu the waitress was working off but I don’t think it was the one we saw!

As Tony has been to Dracula’s castle at least 3 times and I have a weekly pass to it we decided to miss the visit and wondered around the village. It is a beautiful place and was a lovely day – it is a shame that Bran is only known for its Dracula castle and that link to Vlad the Impailer is almost non existent.

But the time of the wedding was approaching. So we all got ready and walked over the where Lavinia and Horatiu would depart from for the church. We were told to be there as something would happen. This was to prove the start of a huge number of traditions and customs – some quaint, some a little strange and some down right bizarre. And this was a good example of the strange/bizarre aspect.

Lavinia came into the reception area with the various people who would be taking part in the ceremony/events of the day. She then put a little posy of flowers on each of them, including her husband to be. They then gave her a cake that she tore into pieces and threw into the air for people to catch. Strangely enough no one could tell me why she did this. Apparently it is a tradition but one now shrouded in mystery. I think Lavi was just having a laugh myself.

Once evryone had finished picking out the crumbs, raisins and pieces of icing from their hair following the gateaux chucking we all left for the church. It is a beautiful, small Romanian Orthodox church on the edge of the village. Behind it were the Carpathian mountains with the very tops of them now adorned with snow. It made an exquisite setting for the ceremony and photographs.

Inside the church, as is traditional, the walls are covered in paintings and icons, many covered in silver except for their faces. The rather dark interior added to the solemn atmosphere as did the constant aroma of the incense hanging in the air. The British contingent was one of the last to arrive so we slid in the back quietly, but Lavinia’s mother would have none of it. She gesticulated wildly to us to come right to the front where they had kept some space for us. There are no seats or pews in Romanian Orthodox churches, you have to stand throughout the services. In our position we could see absolutely everything that as going on and we were grateful because it was fascinating to watch all the ritual and customs.

It would take far too long to recount all that took place. The ceremony lasted about 45 minutes but was full of symbolism. They do not have bridesmaids and best man, but god parents. This must be a married couple and are usually the bride and groom’s best friends. It is a great privilege to be the god parents, a very important role with responsibilities that continue long after the ceremony. The bride and groom don’t exchange rings, they come into the church wearing their new wedding rings on their right hands. The god mother takes the ring off the right hand and moves it to the left hand of the bride and the god father does the same thing for the groom. At another point in the ceremony the bride and groom wear silver crowns and all the wedding party (bride, groom, god parents and priest) all join hands and walk around the altar 3 times all of them kissing the silver covered Bible on each circuit. Everyone then forms a conger line while the bride and grrom's family do the hoky coky. (I might have made up that last sentence.) Right at the end, when the official documents are being signed the bride and groom’s mothers came around giving out chocolates (this is an excellent tradition which I think we should adopt). Everyone crowds around and congratulates the married couple, then when leaving the church there is wine (home produced again) and cake (produced by Lavi’s mother of course). This is another tradition I think we should adopt immediately!

Following the ceremony we all went off to the reception at the hotel where Lavi began the day throwing cake all over the place. In many respects the reception was similar to what we would be familiar with, except for a few points.

The happy couple had hired a band to play, a traditional folk band. For those of you who remember my previous e-mails and who have been over here will know what I mean when I say it was Etno live! The lady who sang had the obligatory year’s output of Max Factor make up on her face. She also had a traditional outfit on which I am sure fitted her 20 years ago but was now under severe strain. In fact during the evening a couple of buttons on her blouse did fly off and embed themselves on the wall and in the forehead of Lavi’s uncle. This did prompt a costume change which transformed her into a rather frightening drag queen.

In all Romanian weddings it is traditional to kidnap the bride. At some point during the festivities the bride is abducted and the groom must do something, usually perform an embarrassing forfeit or pay money, to get her released. Sure enough the announcement went out during the reception that Lavi had been kidnapped. It took two hours for the cheering and celebration to die down the party continued and eventually Horatiu went to bed! It really was quite a cold night for Lavi to remain tied to an effigy of Count Dracula in the middle of Bran until 3 in the morning wearing just a thong and nipple tassles. OK, back to what really happened. Actually the “price” he had to pay for her release was quite clever. They blindfolded him and then brought in 4 girls to kiss him. If he identified his wife he would release her from her captivity. Thankfully the man they put in the middle of the 4 girls did not confuse Horatiu, although the stubble nearly fooled him into thinking it was her. Of course he immediately identified his bride, much to the disappointment of us all.

In establishing a new tradition, the groom was also kidnapped! His Friends abducted him and he was detained by a group of ladies in a secret location. Initially a 1.1 million euro ransom was demanded. This happened to be exactly the budget of our Twinning Project. So I was called in to provide the money. Naturally I could not do this, but suggested instead that if Lavi agreed to abide by some rules Horatiu would be released. Those rules came from the Good Housekeeping Manual from 1955. They contained such things as:

- Have dinner ready. Plan ahead, even the night before to have a delicious meal ready on time for his return from work.
- Prepare yourself. Take 15 minutes to rest so you'll be refreshed when he arrives. Touch up your make up. Put in ribbon in your hair and be fresh looking.
- Listen to him. You may have a dozen important things to tell him but the moment of his arrival is not the time. Let him talk first - remember his topics of conversation are more important than yours.
- Make the evening his. Never complain if he comes home late or goes out to dinner or other places of entertainment without you. Instead try to understand his world of strain and pressure.
- Don't complain if he's late home for dinner or even if he stays out all night. Count this as minor compared to what he might have gone through that day.
- Don't ask him questions about his actions or question his judgement or integrity. Remember he is the master of the house. You have no right to question him.
- A good wife always knows her place.

They brought in a disheveled Horatiu with his clothes all over the place and lipstick all over his face. I then read out the demands, which Diana, Laura, Roxi and Anca (all translators who have worked with us) translated into Romanian. Very reluctantly Lavi agreed to each and Horatiu was released, along with an 8 euro ransom!

We went to bed around 2am having danced, drank and generally had a great time.

The next morning breakfast was courtesy of Lavinia’s mother again. Yes the cheese, meat, sausages and tomatoes came out but so did the sarmale (minced pork in cabbage leaves) and the ubiquitous home made cake. Tony managed a cup of coffee and some water! Iain, Gwyneth and I attempted the full range with varying success. After the indulgences of the night before that variety of food did not sit easily on the stomach. In fact if Tony had eaten some of it I don’t think it would have remained at all in his stomach!!

However we had a fantastic journey home through some spectacular scenery. The road from Bran to Pitesti goes right through the mountains and although very twisty (that tested all our stomachs!) was well worth it because it was stunningly beautiful.

So the wedding weekend came to an end. All I can say is that I know how much work and effort Lavinia, Horatiu and their families put into it, not to mention the colleagues from the project (Roxanna, Gill and Tony). And it was so worth it. A great weekend. And I hope Lavi and Horatiu will have a long and happy marriage.

All the best. I'll be in touch again soon - this time about a statue of a naked lady made of sausages! bet you can't wait.

Andrew.