Something new: An enjoyable Romanian wedding

Bucharest Life has never liked weddings. Sitting for hours at a table making polite conversation with people you barely know never held much of an attraction. Our own wedding was as a result delightfully simple and, even if we say so ourselves, quite brilliant. Held on a Wednesday night in a curry house we invited 45 people, fed them, got them drunk, made our excuses and left, coming back the next afternoon to pay the bill.

Romanian weddings – and we’ve been to a few now – are notorious for two things: their interminable length, and the plethora of drunken men in ill-fitting suits that turn up to them.

So it was hardly with good heart that we set off on Saturday morning for Breaza, scene of the latest wedding we had been invited too. And it started off badly. The church service (presided over by a most fierce looking priest) went on for over an hour, a lifetime when you have to stand up (what is about Romanian churches and the lack of seats?)

Yet the party, held in a large marquee in a large garden, was a real eye-opener. A Romanian wedding can be done well. For a start, it kicked off at 7pm, long after the worst of the day’s heat had passed. (A fierce burst of rain helped too). What’s more, there was food (the first course at least), drink and coffee ready and waiting. And it was all self-service. There’s nothing worse than being at the mercy of the inefficient, jobbing waiters who tend to get wedding gigs.

The seating was mobile: though everyone had assigned seats there were enough spare to facilitate moving around, meaning you didn’t have to spend all night with the same people. Likewise, the buffet nature of the meal meant that you didn’t have to stay rooted to your seat for fear of missing out on your food when it finally appeared, though the Romanian habit of staggering dinner over six months persisted. The fish arrived at 9pm, the sarmale at 11pm, the friptura about 2am and the cake who know’s when for by then we’d fallen into a ditch blind drunk. Sorry, meant ‘gone to hotel.’

The staggering of the (excellent) food was the only complaint though. We were even spared the pathetic spectacle of the bride being stolen and then ‘bought’ back by her new husband.

Best of all though we liked the portaloos. I do not know which company supplied them but they were fantastic. Not your standard pitch-black eco-toilets (which are barely more than holes in the ground) these things had electricity, flushing water, soft toilet paper, hot and cold running taps, hand driers and scented paper towels. Outstanding.

Tagged as: Romanian Wedding