Songs and Dances About Brides

Even the most understated ceremony involves a certain respect for ritual and pageantry. No one plays more of a significant role than the bride's attendants.
Vera Wang

Today's post features songs and dances from the Balkans about brides.

Video #1 is a bride's dance from Macedonia played by a Romani band.  The dance is a Čoček.



Video #2 features a duet by Vaska Ilieva and Aleksandar Sarievski.  The song, Nevesto Crven Trendafil  is about a man who returns home to see his beloved after working abroad.  I read translations for the song in both Bulgarian and Macedonian, and both versions are ambiguous as to what happened to the woman.  Either she married another man, or she was unfaithful to her husband.  There is a mention of the woman's children, and a strange man behind the door.

This version of the song is in Macedonian, and it is also popular in the Pirin region of Bulgaria. There is a dance to this as well.



Video #3 is from a wedding that took place in either the United States or Canada.   I have included it here because it is bilingual (Romanian/English) and features a Romanian wedding tradition: kidnapping the bride.

The groom pays a ransom with two bottles of whiskey. I'm surprised that the bride survives the bouncing while the wedding party brings her into the room.  The entire video is fun to watch!



If you enjoyed this you may also like:

Romanian Wedding Videos from the Universe of YouTube

Wedding Dances and Bloopers from Romania and Bulgaria

The Alien Diaries will be taking a break for a few weeks.  My daughter's wedding will take place in mid September.  Wish them luck!


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.