The Arrival
When the wedding procession approaches the house of the bride, its arrival is announced by firing off pistols and guns, whereupon a number of girls appear and sing various songs expressive of sorrow at the bride’s departure from her old home. In some parts of Serbia there still survives a strange old custom; the bride’s father requires that certain conditions should be fulfilled before the gates of the courtyard are opened for the procession. For example, he sends a good wrestler to challenge any or every man of the bridegroom’s party, and one of the wedding guests must overpower the challenger before the gates are opened. Of course, the wrestling bout is not serious, as a rule. Another condition, obtaining in ether parts, is that the newcomers are not be to admitted before one of them, by firing his pistol, has destroyed a pot or other terra-cotta vessel fastened at the top of the chimney.
When such, or other, conditions have been successfully negotiated, the wedding party is admitted to the house and led to tables loaded with roast lamb or pork, cakes, fruit, wine and brandy. The bride’s father places the father of the bridegroom in the seat of honour, and immediately next to him the stari-svat, then the koom and then the bridegroom. When the guests are seated, a large flat cake (pogatcha) is placed before the bridegroom’s father, and he lays upon it some gold coins; it may be a whole chain made of golden ducats, which the bride is to wear later round her neck. His example is followed immediately by the stari-svat, the koom, and all the other guests. Finally the bride’s father brings the dowry which he has determined to give to his daughter and lays it on the cake. All the money thus collected is handed over to the stari-svat, who will give it in due course to the bride. Next the bridesmaids take the wedding dress to the bride’s apartment, where they adorn her with great care and ceremony. Her toilet finished, one of her brothers, or, in the absence of a brother, one of her nearest male relatives, takes her by the hand and leads her to the assembled family and friends. The moment she appears, the wedding guests greet her with a lively fire from their pistols, and the bridesmaids conduct her to the bridegroom, to whom she presents a wreath of flowers. She is then led to the stari-svat and the koom, whose hands she kisses. That ordeal concluded, she goes into the house, where, in front of the hearth, sit her parents on low wooden chairs. There she prostrates herself, kissing the floor in front of the fire. This is obviously a relic of fire-worship; now, however, symbolical of the veneration of the centre of family life. When she rises, the maiden kisses the hands of her father and mother, who, embracing her, give her their blessing. Now her brother, or relative—as the case may be—escorts her back to the bridegroom’s party and there delivers her formally to the dever, who from that moment takes charge of her, in the first place presenting to her the gifts he has brought.