Ukrainian wedding

Actually, the Ukrainian wedding belongs to kind of Slavic wedding. The Slavic nations nowadays have separate countries and separate traditions, though there were times when this nations were united and called as Salvias. As a result of common roots these nations have a lot in common as for the wedding traditions, though there are also a lot of peculiarities for each nation. It is not typical for Ukrainian wedding to marry a daughter without her agreement. Sure, there were cases when a girl wasn't asked about her willing or unwilling to get married, but in most cases marriage was contracted between two loving people.

The modern Ukrainian wedding is totally deprived of any forcing of girls to get married with men they don't like. They are the children who make their choice about a man or woman they want to spend their lives with. Sure, there are cases when parents disagree with child's choice and do their best in order to prevent such wedding, though it is a personal peculiarity but not the custom. There are no traditions of kidnapping if brides and a few people run away their homes. There is no need for them to run away as no matter on parents' attitude towards future son or daughter-in-law they give their blessing for wedding.

There was an ancient tradition that ribbons in hair were allowed only for those girls who weren't married. Once a girl got married she had to work out ribbons of her hair, as a sign that she is a wife now. Though, nowadays no one wears ribbons in their hair and so no one work those out of hair as getting married. Though, there is another wedding custom alike this one. After the civil ceremony and at the end of wedding party a husband has to take the veil of the wife. After he did it his mother with kerchief in her hands comes to her daughter-in-law. A mother of husband covers head of the bride with kerchief as a symbol of her acceptance of this girl and symbol of she is a wife now but not a girl.

After the kerchief is covered over the head of the bride she has to dance with all unmarried girls of the wedding. She puts the kerchief on their heads and dance with them for a while. After the bride's dance the wedding is almost over and she throws the bunch with her back to the girls. According to ancient belief the one who will catch the bunch will be the one who will get married the current year. Sure, it is only a tradition and frankly speaking there are a few examples when this tradition appeared to be true and a girl who caught the bride's bunch got married the same year.

There are a number of other ancient traditions of Ukrainian wedding but most of them are forgotten today. The Ukrainian wedding became more modern and lost its national peculiarities. Most people prefer to refuse the wedding party and leave for their honey moon right after the wedding ceremony. In most cases it is a civil wedding ceremony performed and there are only a few couples who prefer religious ceremony. Moreover, according to Ukrainian code of civil laws people are not allowed to perform the religious wedding ceremony until they perform civil wedding ceremony. This is the main factor for people to neglect religious wedding ceremony.