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Mrs. Knitting, Toronto Age and Occupation: 24, Student Recruitment Assistant Fiance's Age and Occupation: 24, Neuroscience PhD Candidate Engagement Date: October 2009 Wedding Date: December 2010 Venue: University of Toronto Faculty Club About Me: I'm a pearl wearing, etiquette book reading Toronto girl who loves cooking and baking, museums, charm bracelets, and collecting books on Jackie Kennedy (a lot). I've been known to spend Sunday mornings at the antique market, Wednesday evenings at sister sushi dinners, and any bit of spare time reading. After six and a half years of many late night walks, watching DVDs together in bed, travelling to places like New York, and Tobermory, doing Sudokus together on the couch, lots of Indian food, the occasional yoga class, moving in together and so much more, Mr. Knitting and I are planning a cozy Christmasy (it's a word!), vintage wedding in Toronto complete with many DIY projects (eek!) and lots of help from our amazing group of family and friends.
About Mrs. Knitting

Lucky for me, Mr. Knitting moved to Canada from Poland when he was four. While he now identifies more with being Canadian than Polish, it was important to us to include some details of his heritage even if we’re not having a full blown big fat Polish wedding (did I mention that I think my Big Fat Greek wedding is the best wedding movie ever?).

Here’s a few of the ways we’re doing this:

Music

We’re going to have lots of (okay, maybe more like some) Polish polka music. I think my mom and myself are way more excited about this than Mr. K. My mom grew up practicing polka in her backyard for Ukrainian weddings so she’s excited to put her skills to use. My mom and I often will bust out some polka at non-eastern European weddings. Here’s a picture of us polka-ing at a friend’s (not Eastern European) wedding. No, we’re not all that shy!

Our (Not So) Big Fat Polish Wedding :  wedding cultural toronto traditions 10224 1

Food

We’re sticking with the basics here. We’ll be serving perogies as one of our cocktail hour hors d’oeuvres. We both love perogies and I’m actually pretty good at making them (I’m very proud of this fact!). we figure they’re also a pretty good crowd pleaser.

Our (Not So) Big Fat Polish Wedding :  wedding cultural toronto traditions Perogie

Source

We’re also planning to serve soup as our first course and we’d like it to be borscht. However, while I’m fine with just serving the soup, Mr. Knitting insists the Polish people (himself included) will be really upset if the soup isn’t served with mushroom dumplings.

It looks great to me:

Our (Not So) Big Fat Polish Wedding :  wedding cultural toronto traditions Russian

Source

This looks much better to Mr. K:

Our (Not So) Big Fat Polish Wedding :  wedding cultural toronto traditions Borscht

Source

Sto Lat

Sto Lat is what I like to refer to as the Polish multipurpose celebration song and it translates to 100 years. They sing it at birthday, anniversaries, weddings, baptisms, etc. and we would really like it to be sung at our wedding. Many of the people at our wedding (myself included) don’t know the lyrics, but I’m pretty sure the Polish people that will be there will more than make up for it. They’re a pretty lively bunch!

Drinks

Something that I REALLY wanted to do was have a vodka toast. I thought that would be so much fun to do and a great nod to Mr. K’s heritage. However, I’ve since realized how much that one moment would cost and I’ve had to let that idea go. I’m still pretty sad about that one.

Look how much fun they’re having:

Our (Not So) Big Fat Polish Wedding :  wedding cultural toronto traditions 0028

Source

So that’s a few of the ways we’ll be incorporating Mr. Knitting’s heritage into our wedding. How are you incorporating your or your FI’s heritage into your wedding?

Tags: cultural, toronto, traditions |
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12 Responses to “Our (Not So) Big Fat Polish Wedding”

1.
TheFutureMcBride
Member
TheFutureMcBride (message)  4,461 posts, Honey bee

Polkaing? That’s awesome!

No real heritage here, but McGroom likes to say he’s Scotish (but it’s been at least 200 years since his hamily came to America). I’m an American Mutt, so there’s nothing ingrained in me except being born in America.

 
2.
LittlestBirds
Member
LittlestBirds (message)  2,605 posts, Sugar bee

My husband’s mother is Polish and his father is Scottish. We had a bagpiper play our recessional, which was like an explosion of joy at the end of the ceremony. Even my mom, who had been highly skeptical of the idea, told me later that it was absolutely perfect for that moment.

We hadn’t been planning to incorporate any Polish traditions, but my in-laws surprised us by grabbing the mic during the reception and announcing a money dance! People were pretty happy by that point, so to my surprise people got really into it. We had about $80 in cash by the end of the night (well, $75 in cash and one $5 check written out to “LOVE” from my best friend…) :)

 
3.
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Bee
Mrs. Avocado (message)  1,543 posts, Bumble bee

Mr. Avo insists that no one in Poland does the polka. It makes me sad to think that his family won’t be doing it when we go to his sister’s wedding in October!

 
4.
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Member
jlp2w71611 (message)  298 posts, Helper bee

My Mr. is also Polish so I’m just waiting to see what his family is going to bust out with.. haha :-)

 
5.
Roux
Member
Roux (message)  1,281 posts, Bumble bee

I have some russian relatives, and at christmas we do vodka toasts. My grandma waters down the vodka though, lol.

 
6.
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Member
slicey19 (message)  2,844 posts, Sugar bee

One of my FI’S friends grew up in Poland and is getting married there this month. They are serving vodka in place of beer as in a wine and vodka bar and having something rediculous like 12 courses! I think a Polish wedding sounds epic. The best part is she is marrying a Dutch guy who has an American Step mom and they both have lived in Germany for the last 10 year so they are having a Polish-Dutch-German-American wedding. Aparently it is 4 times as stressful, particuarly due to language barriers but it sounds exciting.

 
7.
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Miss Knitting (message)  1,072 posts, Bumble bee

@LittlestBirds: I love bagpipes. That must have been wonderful.
@Mrs. Avocado: That is sad!

 
8.
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Guest
Tiffany

I’m marrying an Italian in Italy, and I am obsessed with Italian wedding traditions. My personal favorite is that at the end of the night, the groom’s tie is cut into many pieces. The guests buy pieces of it for good luck, and with the money that is raised, the groom pays the band! I hope my FI will agree! They also rip the bride’s dress for good luck…. I don’t think we’ll be doing that!

 
9.
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Bee
Miss Glasses (message)  2,741 posts, Sugar bee

Omg. I love any culture that involves a vodka toast. Your traditions sound amazing and fun!

 
10.
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Bee
Miss Knitting (message)  1,072 posts, Bumble bee

@Tiffany: That sounds like fun!

 
11.
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Guest
george

A Polish wedding without Vodka, the odd urchin or three and a fight to finish off the evening is like a car without an engine, waiting to go some/nowhere.

I bid you all well, providing of course you serve Zubrowka and for the person who mentioned Borscht somewhere…the Polish version is spelt Barszcz.

Yours aye
george

 
12.
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Guest
When You and Your Parents Aren’t from the Same Place | Weddingbee

[...] more Canadian than Polish and this is definitely reflected in our wedding. Pretty much anything Polish in our wedding is there because I pushed for it (except for the mushroom [...]

 

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Mrs. Knitting
Mrs. Knitting

Mrs. Knitting, Toronto Age and Occupation: 24, Student Recruitment Assistant Fiance's Age and Occupation: 24, Neuroscience PhD Candidate Engagement Date: October 2009 Wedding Date: December 2010 Venue: University of Toronto Faculty Club About Me: I'm a pearl wearing, etiquette book reading Toronto girl who loves cooking and baking, museums, charm bracelets, and collecting books on Jackie Kennedy (a lot). I've been known to spend Sunday mornings at the antique market, Wednesday evenings at sister sushi dinners, and any bit of spare time reading. After six and a half years of many late night walks, watching DVDs together in bed, travelling to places like New York, and Tobermory, doing Sudokus together on the couch, lots of Indian food, the occasional yoga class, moving in together and so much more, Mr. Knitting and I are planning a cozy Christmasy (it's a word!), vintage wedding in Toronto complete with many DIY projects (eek!) and lots of help from our amazing group of family and friends.

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