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I am half Polish. I grew up thinking my family embraced our Polish heritage because we ate sausage and did polkas at weddings. It took me quite a while and seeing how other people celebrate their own culture and customs to realize that my family was quite lazy at being Polish.
My parents at their quasi-Polish wedding almost 35 years ago
My great grandparents emigrated from Poland during a time where it wasn’t so hot to be Polish. My grandpa changed his family name, removing the -kowski, in order to Americanize himself and fit in. Diversity wasn’t valued then like it is now and I think that was a major reason my grandparents never taught me much about my heritage.
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Simply put, I need a cheongsam/qi pao/Chinese dress to wear at both of our receptions.
Unsimply put, I haven’t really started looking for one yet.
Obvious, right? Go to Chinatown and buy one. Well, I sort of tried. But I got lost in the chaos by myself. Plus I’m deathly afraid of the store owners since a) I don’t speak the language b) I kind of, uh, don’t know what the heck I am doing, and c) I read on Yelp that they criticize you if you’re fat. Well, okay, because of letter “a”, I probably wouldn’t know they were criticizing me, but still!
So bring my mom with me, then?
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When I was little, I didn’t dream much about getting married. The two wedding dreams I had as a little girl were:
1. The food, especially the traditional Taiwanese dessert of pink and white glutinous rice balls that are fried then sprinkled with peanut powder and sugar.
2. Being able to wear a really cute chipao!
These are some chipaos that I am in love with. They are all worn by Maggie Cheung in the movie In the Mood for Love:
(images courtesy of The Fashion Spot.)
Whew! It took me longer than the anticipated week to write up the most important Polish wedding traditions. I hope that you enjoyed reading them, and that you learned something about the Polish culture! To wrap up, I just wanted to draw your attention to some of the different traditions that have been mentioned on the ’Bee before, thanks to the Avocados and the Sea Breezes!
Breezy wrote about the Poprawiny, or “the do-over”: the day after the wedding extravaganza (I told you Polish weddings were three day affairs). I love her family’s addition of a shot of vodka and a shot of water to the “Bread and Salt” tradition (like a true Polka, I like anything with a little addition of wodka). She also wrote about an interesting way to celebrate one’s 1st wedding anniversary. 
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So last time, I told you about my super busy month and a half after the wedding, but now that that’s all over (yeah right), it’s time to get into the wedding preparations!
The day before the Spaniel wedding, we gathered together in our home with a few of our closest friends for a non-traditional mehndi party. BM-Noe, an out-of-towner, had spent the night since our rehearsal dinner was the evening before (two days before the wedding), so we decided to start our morning with a greasy homemade breakfast (the best kind). While Mr. Spaniel cooked and I did some frantic last-minute vacuuming, Best Man Fan (our photographer for the day!) and his girlfriend arrived.
“Oczepiny” or “The Unveiling” is one of the oldest Polish wedding traditions. It usually happens at the reception around midnight, and officially marks the first day of the bride’s life as a mature woman and wife. The ceremony begins with the unveiling of the bride (hence the name, duh). The maid of honour is put in charge of taking off the bride’s veil, which you can imagine is no easy task!
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A Polish wedding is not simply a one day affair. It is a full-out celebration consisting of three full days of binge eating, drinking, and dancing. The fun begins with the Polterabend: a Polish/German custom (side note history lesson: our part of Poland was under German/Prussian occupation for close to 300 years before WWI) where anyone from the community that wants to come and wish the soon-to-be-married couple well is invited to bring a collection of bottles and jars and smash the glass on the porch of the bride’s house. Traditionally, the bride and groom were supposed to clean the glass up themselves to prove that they would work together on the household chores. The people “testing” them could only be persuaded to stop throwing glass if the groom persuaded them with enough wodka.
***All pictures below are personal shots taken by Mr. P or me at my cousin’s Polterabend in Poland.
In the modern version of the Polterabend, some things have changed:
The bread and salt tradition is a Slavic custom that dates back to the 17th century. It is basically a greeting ceremony, and it is practiced in many eastern European nations including Poland, Russia, Serbia, Bulgaria, and others. In simple terms, the host and/or hostess of a household or event will welcome important guests by presenting them with a loaf of bread and some salt. The guest will then take a piece of bread, dip it in the salt, and eat it. This is supposed to be a symbol of great hospitality, as well as an expression of hope that the guest will never know the pains of hunger.
This custom is not limited to weddings. Many Slavic governments use this tradition when greeting diplomats and people of political importance. Joe Biden even got a taste of it on a recent trip to Ukraine.
The coin toss is a tradition that the hive has heard about before. Does this couple look familiar?
Our very own Avocados pulled off this tradition beautifully! Basically, after exiting the church, the happy couple is showered with coins by their guests. The bride and groom have to pick up all of the coins by themselves, and this is supposed to ensure the prosperity of their union.
Sister Pudding has been giving me a lot of attitude about the fact that I haven’t been blogging as regularly as I used to. She’s calling me a “bad bee”, and she’s right; my post counts in the last couple of weeks has been measly compared to what it used to be. The truth is, the closer I come to the wedding, the more thinking about anything wedding related (including blogging) gives me a slight panic attack. I sincerely apologize: I have been a bad bee.
This week, I would like for that to change. So, in order to wean myself back to being a regular blogger, I have decided to do a week-long set of posts on Polish wedding traditions. I have a different tradition for every day, and I am hoping that this pre-determined list of topics will aid me in blogging regularly.
So without further ado, today’s tradition is called “Blogoslawienstwo” or “The Blessing”.
The idea that seeing the bride before the wedding is bad luck does not exist in Polish tradition.
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Confession: I am a 27 year old woman who enjoys watching shows about trendy high school kids, and Gossip Girl is one of my favorites. Blair is absolutely my fashion icon, and I am strangely attracted to the naughtiness that is Chuck Bass.
This week’s episode was particularly exciting for me. Why? I’ll give you two words: Polish Wedding.
That’s right, the very Polish Dorota got married this week, and I had big hopes for her wedding. Because she kept talking about how incorporating tradition into the ceremony was very important to ensure a successful union, I thought that I was in for a slight glimpse into our own wedding: a modern North American affair, with a mix of “the old country”.
Unfortunately, Dorota’s wedding was quite disappointing.
In the past I’ve dated men outside my race, and there have been some less-than-successful results. One young man (we were in college) decided that color didn’t matter — at all. As it turned out, what that meant was that my color didn’t matter to him. Whenever issues of racism or culture came up, he said, “Color shouldn’t matter.” Um, okay.
I was in this relationship when my father died. Seeing his face upon exiting the funeral — the traditional, African-American Baptist funeral complete with gospel choir, singing, wailing, etc. — was priceless. It mattered.
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Well, early on Mrs. Penguin mentioned a “pink broom” wedding! I call my wedding that because I love pink and we’re going to “jump the broom”, as they say. So, I figured I should focus on it a little.
Jumping the broom is an optional tradition for African-American weddings. Its origins are a bit uncertain, but its significance is clear.
After the minister has pronounced us man and wife, we kiss, and we turn back to the congregation, we’ll jump the broom just before we walk back down the aisle. I think it will just be a joyous moment and a great signifier that we are married. Here’s an example that shows exactly that; they jump the broom at about 1:30. This is a very cute couple!
But this post is more about the broom itself. Although it only appears in the ceremony for an instant, it’s symbolic for me and I imagine it will have a prominent place at the front of our wedding album.
We’re having a decidedly United States kinda wedding with few shouts to my or his heritage, short of our multiculti family members neatly arranged in a room together. That in itself should be an experience, I’m sure. We didn’t have a particular reason for going this route, it was just a matter of taste and preference, as with everything else. But on that note…
May Bride S is Chinese. May Groom M is Indian. They are not having an Indian wedding, nor are they having a Chinese wedding. But they’ve apparently been asked at least a couple times if they’re having an Indian wedding.
My first reaction is to be half-serious bitter over the fact that being Indian is cool now. I wished that half of my heritage would disappear during awkward growing-up phases. I was finally cool with being Indian after the adolescent self-consciousness came and went. But after Slumdog Millionaire and Aishwarya Rai hit mainstream popularity, a lot of other people got cool with it, too. As a friend pointed out, Irish immigrants were barely one rung up from slaves long ago; now, everyone and their mom is proud to be “Irish” on St. Patrick’s Day and the accent makes people go wild. So, perhaps it’s just a matter of cultural evolution.
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Since I put all my emotions on the line in my last post, I thought that maybe we could move on to something a little bit lighter.
Bollywood.
You know, the Hindi-language movie industry based in Mumbai, India? (And not to be confused with Tollywood or Kollywood.)
Okay, so maybe that’s not what you expected me to say, but I’m a big fan of Bollywood movies. There’s something completely escapist about them that sucks me in. Um, yes, I think I did just admit to having my head in the clouds. Clearly my dad has been right about me all these years…
But seriously—lavish sets and outfits, lots of drama, and a whole host of song and dance routines. What’s not to like?
Plus, a lot of Bollywood movies have a wedding or two in them.
Ah, now I have your attention.
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