A Traditional Farmers Wedding: Drinks, Food And A Fertilization Dance
This post is also available in: German
Every two years the region of Kastelruth organizes its traditional farmers wedding. A wedding as it used to be hundreds of years ago with a lot of celebration and traditional customs.
It was a very interesting experience being part of the whole process how such old weddings were organized in the past. Michel, the father of the bride, explained during the dressing of the bride, that they are getting married because in the summer there is too much work and not enough time to get married. Back in the days weddings were organized rather spontaneous compared to today where couples plan their wedding many months and years in advance.
The whole wedding was fun to attend. We met in the morning around 11 A.M. and started with the first wine to get in the mood! The bride got dressed and we had the chance to follow everything. Many, many layers were needed in order to protect her from the cold!
In the afternoon the procession starts outside Kastelruth where the families, neighbors and friends of the couple met with their sledges and horses met before riding to the church and main square in town.
This year hundreds of citizens and tourists came to the main square to see the entry of the wedding party. Due to the lack of snow during this warm winter they even spread some snow on the streets for the sledges. After the ceremony the wedding party disappeared in an old restaurant where they ate delicious food, drank good wine and celebrated the wedding.
Even here there are some traditions that need to be taken care of. For instance the fertilization dance!
The last scene in the video is the fertilization dance where the neighbor of the bride dances with a cake in his hand with a whole and a lid. Under the lid there is a string with 12 children attached. He dances in front of the bride and she has to try to catch the string. From the spot where she grabs the string the kids are counted and they says that this is going to be the number of children the couple is going to have. Michel told me that his mum caught 7 and that he actually has 6 siblings!
After a whole day of traditions and customs they told me that it was all a fake wedding to revive the traditions. To me this is the best wedding ever, you get to drink, you get to eat, you get to party and at the end of the day you aren’t married! C’est la vie!
Disclaimer: Thanks to the Seiser Alm for inviting me to this fun festival! All thoughts and comments are my own!
English
Deutsch
Français
How fun!
Stephanie – The Travel Chica recently posted..The Drunken Tree of Buenos Aires
Ahh Norwary. A spectacular and bl%$dy expensive country!
Federico recently posted..The Best Things to do and Places to See in Seville, Spain
What a cool thing to experience, although the fertilization dance made me laugh.
Ayngelina recently posted..Warming up to Winter in Niagara on the Lake
I’d be scared that I would accidentally grab too many strings at once and end up with like 5 kids!
Emily in Chile recently posted..Keeping it simple at Carmelo Patti
I love how so many different sub cultures within one larger culture have their own styles of weddings. Who would have ever thought that there was such a thing as a farmers wedding!
This is so fun! Although I am SO glad I didn’t have to pull on any fertilization strings at my wedding. I love learning about weddings in different cultures. It’s been especially interesting learning about the process here in Taiwan.
Casey-A Cruising Couple recently posted..Padangbai Barong Dance: An Exorcism Ceremony