Episode 20: Weddings

In this episode, Donielle and Khrystyna talk about weddings: culture, traditions, and superstitions, and you'll hear a little about their own wedding experiences! Be sure to grab the show notes for even more content!

Transcript

D           Welcome to Coffee and Conversation for ESL Listening. I'm Donielle.

K            And I'm Khrystyna, so grab a cup and join the conversation.

D           All right, well, we're already starting this off laughing, so you can see where this is going today. I just told Khrystyna “let's break a leg”. That's an expression that sounds crazy, sounds horrible, but it's supposed to be for good luck. We've not been having great luck with our recording lately. We've been having some technical issues, so we are hoping third time's a charm on this.

K            Yeah. That's true. It'll work this time. I have a good feeling about it.

D           Me too. Okay. So let's get into it. So before we get into our topic, which is going to be weddings, we got this idea from last time when we were talking about superstitions and we started thinking about how there are so many superstitions with weddings, tied to traditions and things like that. So we thought, huh, that would be a good topic all by itself. So, before we get into that, a little bit of housekeeping. And we say that like to get the, you know, news and information and stuff not related to the content, but get that out of the way. I want to remind everybody to definitely grab the show notes. I've been forgetting to remind everyone about those, the last couple of episodes. So yeah, do get those, you'll get vocabulary and culture notes and all kinds of good stuff there and something new. I don't know if you've seen this, Khrystyna, but we are now starting to add a transcript.

K            Oh, that's right. I do remember you mentioned that. So, and it's yeah, it's so useful to you because, you know, especially if you're learning, another language, listening and being able to read at the same time. It's just helps really helps with learning.

D           Yeah, exactly. So I started it with the superstition one. So the last one we did, whatever number that is 18 or 19, I don't even know anymore, but you'll get in the show notes, there's a link to take you to the transcript. And I've also bolded the words that are highlighted in the vocabulary section. So hopefully that's helpful. Let us know if you like it because we can certainly keep doing that. It's a little bit of time to get those done, but I think it's worth it. So let us know. Okay, so talking about weddings, wedding traditions. Yeah, first of all, I want to clarify the difference between wedding and marriage. And I noticed that a lot of people get those confused. The wedding is the ceremony, marriage is the whole relationship.

K            Yes. Right. So the wedding is kind of like a starting point to the marriage. 

D           Exactly.

K            Right. The wedding is where the marriage starts and then kind of goes either uphill or downhill depends.

D            Hopefully it's at least, you know, like flat level. No downhill.

K            Right. So either uphill or flat.

D           Yeah, that's what we're hoping for. That's the goal. So anyway, would you say that you had sort of a traditional wedding? I know you got married in Ukraine, or you had like a couple of weddings, didn't you?

K            Well, I had one, but just for disclosure to our listeners, we are both married. So we did have some, you know, some sort of experience in a wedding part. 

D           Different experiences, I bet.

K            Right, so I had two, I would say I got married twice, but I am married to the same man and it's the same marriage.  Anyway, so the first time I got married, it was in Ukraine and it was a religious ceremony. And then we actually had a wedding celebration, like, reception or wedding party. And then when I married my husband in the United States, it was a legal ceremony where we went to courthouse and then got married there. We did not have a celebration or a party, we went to a Chinese buffet for lunch after that to celebrate just two of us.

D           Well, you probably had enough of the partying. Probably you were like, okay, let's just get on with this already.

K            Right. So it was, we always call it -- because when we got married here in the United States, it was during my husband's lunch break at work. And he worked at the courthouse at that time. So we literally went over to one of the judges and had them officiate the ceremony and then had lunch. So we call it a drive through wedding. It was just like quick.

D           Yeah, doesn't get much quicker than that. But it's really funny is that your experience, so mine is a bit different, of course. I got married in the wedding capital of, I guess, the world, Las Vegas. And yeah, Las Vegas is known for weddings. They have very loosey goosey rules for things like you can get your wedding –not wedding—your marriage license, and just walk across the street and go get married. In other places, I think there's a little bit of a waiting time. And as you talked about drive-through, you can do a drive-through wedding in Las Vegas as well. You can get an Elvis Presley impersonator to marry you.

K            Oh yeah! Sure, nowadays you could probably have anyone impersonate any famous person to officiate your wedding don't you think? 

D           Oh yeah, sure. Oh yeah. But you know, Elvis is just so associated with Las Vegas. I guess that's why there are a million Elvis impersonators out there. And actually, you can get your credentials -- I don't know what they are to, to perform a wedding ceremony for a couple. Like on the internet, you can just like go and register somewhere, pay a couple bucks and you can become an officiant. That's the word…

K            That’s crazy though.

D           A little bit. But yeah, so literally anybody could marry anybody.

K            Pretty much. It looks like it.

D           Oh, and when I say, I'm sorry, when I say anybody can marry anybody, we use that in two ways. Like you marry somebody, it means you get married to that person. And then there's the official -- either the religious, the priest or the judge or whoever who performs the marriage ceremony. And we also say, they marry you [the couple]. So yeah, that may have sounded a little confusing.

K            Right. But that's crazy. Like in Ukraine, you actually have to either you have to be a priest or we have, it's not necessarily a courthouse. It's like the establishment where you go specifically to get married, legally too. And you have to be, I, you know, honestly, I don't even know like, how do you become licensed to marry people, right? To officiate the wedding. But…

D           Yeah. Interesting.

K            It's not like here where anybody can do that.

D           Yeah, it is really funny when you hear about people doing that. 

K            So I have a funny story, actually. I just attended a wedding last weekend. One of my coworkers got married and, I know we'll talk a little more about the traditional wedding, but this was not a traditional wedding. It was more of like a Halloween themed wedding. 

D           Ooh, I love it!

K            Yeah! So the guests were encouraged to dress up and the bride had a dress that was like white, black and red and kind of -- it was all even decorated kind of Halloween style. So the person who married them, right? Who officiated the wedding, he was dressed up like a ghost buster. 

D           Oh my gosh, hilarious. For people who don't know, that's a movie. Ha ha ha.

K            Yeah. So and I think he was a friend of either [the] bride or groom, but he had, I guess, a license or certification or something, whatever, like you said, you can get it now on the internet. Yeah. So he was -- he could legally marry them. But I thought it was interesting.

D           So you said guests were encouraged to dress up. Did you and your husband dress up?

K            Yeah. So I, my husband didn't go, but, our office staff went like the coworkers. So we dressed up, we dressed up as fairies. We had fairy wings and little flowery dresses.

D           That is so fun! See I love stuff like that. I mean who says you have to do things traditionally? Make your own tradition. I'm all about it.

K            Yeah, except my one of my straps on the wings snapped so I was only half-winged fairy.  Well, with my luck, I mean that usually happens

D           Oh man.

K            At least my dress stayed on completely, so that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I know, it was like a one-winged fairy.

D           Yeah, poor little wings. Oh, how sad. You're holding the other one in your hand, probably like waving it. Hi. 

K            Yep! So, but it was fun. It was fun.

D           That's fun. I love it. I totally love that, you know, me, I'm the Halloween girl, so.

K            You know, I thought of you, like when I was invited to this wedding and they said it's a Halloween theme and I was like, I know a person who would love this kind of wedding. Oh, yeah. 

D           You know it, you know it. All right, well, so let's talk about traditional weddings a little bit, at least in the US. Now you've been to weddings in the US and of course in Ukraine. Would you say there's some similarities?

K            Yes. So … I would say traditional wedding in the U S and maybe more of a modern wedding in Ukraine have a lot of similarities, right? The wedding dress is usually white. The groom is dressed in either a tuxedo or a really nice suit. You know, like all the, whatever the ceremony is pretty similar and you know, the guests and all that, but Ukrainian weddings -- and depends which region you're in, or depends how modern or traditional the wedding is -- have a lot more traditions. Even sometimes the actual dress is different or the way the guests dress and the things the guests do. So when I was getting married, we tried to kind of combine the modern aspect and a little bit of a traditional Ukrainian aspect. Because I wanted my husband to experience a little bit of the traditional stuff, so…

D           Plus I'm sure, you know, the family wants to see certain things, right? They're like, you have to have this.

K            Yes. Oh, yes, absolutely. So, but I have been to a couple weddings in the United States, like traditional ones more formal weddings, right. And where you have bridesmaids all dressed in the same color dresses. I was actually once in a wedding in the United States as a bridesmaid. So I remember those. Yeah, the painful experience of looking for a bridesmaid dress that had to be hot pink and…

D           Oh my gosh. You know, we have to talk about this because this is something that is just, it's one of those things that people always talk about and complain about. They hate being a bridesmaid in a wedding because for some reason, the bride loses her mind when she's planning this and she picks really awful dresses very often, or just colors that are strange that don't really -- you don't like them, the style. So people are always complaining about this.

K            Yes, it's, you know, and luckily the bride in this wedding, she was a good friend of mine and she wasn't -- I would never consider her too, like, girly -- you know, when they say somebody is girly, they usually like to wear like ruffles and little dresses and all the girly colors, you know, like pinks and purples. I never thought of her as a girly person based on how she acts and how she dresses. But for some weird reason, she thought that all of her bridesmaids had to wear these hot pink dresses. 

D           I’m telling you: something happens to girls when they're getting ready to get married and they just -- they do things you wouldn't expect when it comes to the styles and you're like, what is going on here?

K            And I kind of felt for her husband too, because he had to wear a tuxedo with a bright pink vest. 

D           Oh no!

K            Yeah, now that I remember. So, but at least so a lot of the times in a wedding like the bridesmaids or they call it the wedding party, right? The wedding party is -- on the bride's side: there's all the girls that participate in the wedding. It's usually bridesmaids and I think even the flower girl included in that. And on the groom's side, it's usually all the groomsmen. And then there's a bridesmaid, there's a maid of honor, and then there's a best man. So they're kind of like the main, I think they're usually the witnesses too, like when you have to sign the marriage license or certificate, like you have two witnesses, one from each side, they have to sign it. So usually the best man and the maid of honor sign those.

D           Oh yeah, that's right. I didn't do all that, so I kind of forgot about it.

K            Yeah. So most of the time the bride would pick the color and the style of bridesmaid dresses, so they all have to wear the same. And I always feel so bad for those bridesmaids because, you know, people have different body types and not everybody wants to or is comfortable or likes the look that they are forced to wear. So at least in my case, the bride was kind enough to allow us to pick whatever style of the bridesmaid dress we wanted, as long as it was that particular color. So that was kind of nice.

D           Yeah, but I bet there wasn't a wide variety of nice -- or dresses that you would actually like in that color because when you get to that color You're pretty much looking at certain styles.

K            Yeah, yeah, that's true. However, we managed to – there were three bridesmaids and we all managed to have a different dress. It was funny.

D           That's good. That's good that you liked it okay. Well, you know, that reminds me as we're talking about the bridesmaids and the dresses and, and the brides picking these kind of weird colors and -- yeah, well, it makes me think of, and this is an expression you'll probably hear out and about: people talk about bridezillas.

K            Oh, yeah.

D           And yeah, again, something happens to women when they're getting ready to get married. Sometimes they are just in such a place where they want everything to be perfect, that they can get very upset when things don't go well, something goes wrong. So yeah, a lot of people will complain about bridezillas.

K            Right? You know, there used to be a show on TLC channel, I think, and it was called Bridezilla and it was one of those guilty pleasures for me. So a guilty pleasure is something that really bad, right? Bad for you, like either a terrible show. It's really not.. but it, it's so addicting that you can't stop watching it.

D           Yeah, exactly. Right. There's a lot of those, all those reality shows.

K            I loved watching Bridezilla because that's exactly what it was. And I know there probably was, you know, a certain degree of making things dramatic 

D           yeah, of course. 

K            and that was exactly what it was. These brides, they would go completely crazy and just try to, you know, like they would want all these extravagant things. And they would get upset about every little detail and things that are not important. And they would get into fights and I was like, Oh my gosh. Yeah. It was crazy.

D           Yeah. Sometimes they focus so much on the Big Day. Sometimes we like to call the wedding day the big day that, you know, the important thing gets kind of lost in there. Yeah. That you're about to get married to your partner, your life partner. But yeah, you get also wrapped up in all the details that gets lost a little bit. But yeah, I'm sure you were not a bridezilla.

K            You know, it's funny because I, you know, my husband and I, most of our relationship was long distance, so we didn't get to see each other in person as much. So I remember when, we married, or when we had our wedding and I really didn't care about, you know, what type of flowers I'll have, or what type of food is there or how, what the decorations are. I was happy that my husband was there with me and, you know, family was there and we just had a good time. 

D           Yeah, that's how it should be.

K            Right. But people sometimes are very particular because you're right. It is, you know, it's the Big Day and 

D           and you’ve dreamed of it since you were a kid, you know?

K            Right, so people a lot of times have certain ideas and dreams and they want it to be exactly that way.

D           Yeah, and well, the wedding that I had was much different because I didn't, you know, have the bridesmaids and all that stuff. And it's very interesting when you get married in Vegas, it is, it's a big business, of course, weddings there. So they have all these things there that will help you. Like I remember I hired like a “wedding coordinator”. And she arranged everything, told me where to go. She took us to go get a dress, which I rented. Love the idea of renting a wedding dress. Yeah, and everything was just taken care of. Got us the flowers, got us this, that, and the other, and didn't have to think about it, didn't have to plan anything. She just took us where we needed to go. That was a dream.

K            And you know, the whole wedding, I think they call it the wedding industry because there's so much planning, there's so many different parts of it. And I think wedding coordinator is a pretty popular job, especially like in bigger cities. But I also feel like the wedding expense, like the price of the wedding in the United States is absolutely outrageous. It's terrible.

D           Ooh, yeah.

K            So, because I remember when my friend was getting married and all the things like, she's like, oh, how much the flowers cost and how much you have to pay for this? And I was like, oh my gosh, like people, how can people afford to have these huge weddings? Because everything is so expensive.

D           I don't know. And the funny thing is, I was curious because it's been a while since I looked into cost of wedding things. So I looked to see what is the average wedding cost in the United States? 

K            What is it?

D           $30,000. Of course, you can do it for less and you can do it for way more, but that's the average. Wow. It's crazy.

 K            Right? You know, and I can't even imagine, you know, two young people who are getting married. 

D           Do you know what vacation I could take and furnishings I could get for $30,000? 

K            I know!

D           Yeah, priorities!

K            So, but again, you know, different people, different tastes, different ideas, and you know, people are willing to do that. I can't even imagine. I mean, and again, it's also because it's in the United States, like in Ukraine. The wedding I had, we had about 50 people, and they were all very close family and friends. And the food-- so it was extremely inexpensive.

D           Nice.

K            Oh, so speaking about food, I know that a lot of weddings here in the United States, it's usually catered or prepared food, right? … like you sit down and then they bring you your plate that's already plated food with a certain dish on it. So in Ukraine, a traditional wedding, the food is not like that. We have usually tables already set up with tons of dishes and food in the middle of the table. And everybody kind of picks up a plate and shares. 

D           Ok, so it’s sort of like a family style.

K            Yes. So we start with different appetizers and salads and cold cuts and all the different kinds of things like that. Then they bring the first, or what is it? First and second course, right? So it's usually some sort of a soup or, yeah, about like soup or Ukrainian borscht, which is a traditional Ukrainian beet soup. And then there is a second course, which is a hot dish. It would be some sort of either meat or a vegetable or fish, and then, you know, like potatoes or something like that. And then there's fruit at the end. 

D           Oh my goodness.

K            And cutting the cake is usually not a tradition in Ukraine. I know in the United States, it's a big part of the wedding, right? When the bride and groom cut the cake.

D           Oh yeah! 

K            and they feed each other the that piece of cake…

D           …and smash it in their faces

K            yeah, smash it... oh honestly it's the most irritating tradition here: the smashing of the cake in each other's faces

D           Yeah, well, you know, I mean, again, the women are spending a lot of time and energy and money getting their hair done, their makeup and everything. Last thing she wants is some cake smashed in her face. Yeah.

K            So in Ukraine, there is no cutting the cake. What happens usually, we have these big pedestals on each table and those pedestals have just this mountain of different types of cakes and pastries and cookies. 

D           Oh, I love it!

K            Yes, so then you don't have to, because they're just there from the beginning. You don't have to wait until the cake. You can have dessert anytime throughout the wedding.

D           Love it!

K            So my husband, when we were getting married in Ukraine, he wasn't used to that setup, right? He'd never experienced that. So he said when, I remember after the wedding, he was telling me, he's like, I've never been to a wedding like this. He goes, “When I saw the table and all this food just piled on top of each other…” He said, “I felt like we were having a Viking feast.” He’s like, “All I need is a turkey leg.”  

D           Just attack that table of food, yeah.

K            Right. I know a lot of the times like drinks in the United States, if there is alcohol served, sometimes they call it either open bar or cash bar, right? If open bar people can just go and order whatever drink they want. If it's a cash bar, they actually have to go pay for their drink. In Ukraine, if you might have guessed, there's definitely alcoholic drinks.

D           I kind of thought so.

K            And what happens, they usually put them in the middle of each table. And there's like a selection. There's like a vodka or wine or cognac or like different, different drinks that people just pour for each other.

D           So basically it looks like you can just sit down at this table and you don't have to move all night. The food, the drink, everything is right there for you.

K            Yes, and you don't have to move, but you have to, because once the dancing starts, like there's nobody sitting, you gotta go, unless you can't walk, you know, unless you have actually reasons you can't dance, but everybody dances, the young, the old, doesn't matter. 

D           That's good. I love that. That's so fun.

K            So that is, yeah, it is fun. 

D           Yeah, that is very different. Well, as always, we've gotten, we've talked a lot about this and there's still so much more we could talk about, but we're running out of time. I wanted to at least talk a little bit about some of the traditions that we have here and some of the superstitions. So rapid fire here.

Of course, so we've got the to get ready for the wedding. The bride is gonna have the white dress, of course. That's pretty standard. And then the tradition/superstition is she needs to have something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue. So she may, you know, have earrings that she borrowed, blue, I don't know, maybe on the garter for example, maybe. You don't even have to see it, but she has to have it on, it has to be on her. And then buy something new, and then something old and she has also wears that. So it's all gotta be on there for good luck. And there's a lot of other superstitions that are different in different places, but like I didn't even realize the veil, the, you know, that piece of cloth that goes over your face.

K            Mm-hmm.

D           That also has roots and superstitions. That's to keep the bad spirits out. There's a lot of things about bad spirits, trying to keep those away from everything. 

K            Of course.

D           And then some people say that you shouldn't wear pearls because that represents tears and that's bad luck, crying in your -- sadness in your marriage and things like that. 

K            Right

D           An interesting one that I saw was that -- I believe this is in England. I don't know if this is anywhere else, but I saw this in many places that if you find a spider on your dress, supposedly it's good luck. 

K            Good luck? Ok 

D           You’ve never heard of that? 

K            Yeah, I heard and you know… I think not necessarily a wedding but a spider in general is for good luck in a lot of other superstitious. Yeah, if there's a spider on you, they usually say it's for good luck. Oh, yeah.

D           Oh, interesting. I wonder why. And also if it rains on your wedding day, that's supposed to be good luck.

K            Yes, yeah, I heard of that too. And it's kind of the same in my culture too, if it rains on your wedding day. 

D           Okay, yeah. Now that I think about it, it rained on my wedding day too. And it was Las Vegas and they said it was like two days of the year you might get rain and lucky you, you got it. So okay.

K            I think you're pretty lucky. I think that's good.

D           A big one -- superstition and tradition is the day of the wedding, the bride and groom are not supposed to see each other. I saw different reasons, you know, historically and superstition-wise why that is, but very bad luck; can't see each other.

K            Hmm, interesting.

D           Oh, and this is not really superstition, but just some traditions at the wedding. What we, what they do is they have, the tech--, what am I trying to say? Traditionally, the “father of the bride” gives the bride away. And you know, a lot of these traditions have some not pleasant history behind them, you know, it's not good stuff, but we kind of have gone with that over the years and we try to make something nice out of it and it's like, oh yes, you know, father, daddy, giving the bride away, it's a nice tradition now.

K            Well, and it goes with that the father is the one who walks the bride down the aisle, right? 

D           Right, exactly.

K            So, yeah, and it goes with that.

D           Right, yes, exactly. And then we've got the bouquet toss. So she throws the bouquet and supposedly whoever, the bridesmaids or the unmarried girls that are out there, they all practically kill themselves to try to catch it because it's supposed to mean that whoever catches it is the next person to get married.

K            Mm-hmm. Next one. Yep.

D           Do you have anything similar like that?

K            So I think nowadays they started doing the bouquet toss, but the tradition is that around midnight, the mother-in-law will actually take the veil off of the bride. And instead, the husband comes over and tries to put like a shawl on their head, right? And tie it. And usually you have to take it off two times. And then the third time he ties it and stays on. Kind of like...Oh no, I don't want to be married. Oh no. And then, okay, fine. Kind of a silly tradition, but so then, oh yeah. 

D           Oh!  There's a lot of traditions like that about, you know, I don't really want to, but I am, you know?

K            Well, but as you said, kind of historically goes back to not very good reasons, right? So then what the bride does, she takes that veil and she dances. And so she picks any unmarried girl or young woman in-- even young girls too, in the wedding. And she puts a veil on their head, kind of holds it on their head and dances for like 30 seconds or so. So it's supposed to mean that, you know, like I am putting you this-- like I'm giving you this good luck and, you know, so you will get married too in the future. 

D           So basically the pressure's on. 

K            Oh yeah.

D           Find you a man.

K            Find you a man. Oh yeah.

D           And then, oh, one other tradition that I think is funny and also has some weird roots, but you know, we try to make it light nowadays. I actually saw a couple of different origin stories about this, so who knows what it really is. But after the wedding and you go home, the new husband picks up his wife, the bride, and carries her across the threshold -- that's the opening of the door -- across the threshold into her new home. And you know, that's a big thing. Everybody's got to do that. And I saw a couple different things that they were saying that originally was because they didn't want her to change her mind, so they had ot physically carry her. So no, you're coming home with me.

K            Yes. So, like, at this point wouldn’t it be just a little late? 

D           I know exactly, right? And the other one the other one had to do with spirits like if her feet touched the ground it was bad luck so that's why he had to carry her over but anyway it's something cute and fun that carries over to today's modern wedding so…

K            Yeah, that's true. That's funny. You know, one thing that I would say, like after the wedding, like the next day, what was one of my favorite things? Not, I mean, besides the fact that I was married and all that. So people, you know, like when people bring gifts to the wedding. And I think we can talk, we can have another episode about just gifts and showers and all that, but, in Ukraine, besides the gift, they give the bride flowers, like a bouquet of flowers. So when I came back from the wedding and at my parents' house, I walked into the living room and there were just flowers everywhere. Every vase that my mom had, had a bouquet of flowers in it. And I honestly, I felt like a ballerina after the performance. It was, I thought it was just the coolest thing ever. All these flowers everywhere. 

D           Oh yeah, that is super cool. Yeah, traditions are so fun. And I love hearing about traditions in other cultures and everyone's just got an interesting take on things. And it's just fun, I love it.

K            You know, it would be really neat if our listeners could comment and maybe include a, you know, a special thing about their wedding traditions from their countries.

D           Oh yeah, I would love to hear it.

K            I would be really nice to… Yes, it would be really nice to know.

D           So yeah, go ahead, leave those comments and yeah, tell us how you're liking the transcript, anything else you wanna share with us. And I guess until next time, here's to good coffee, good vibes and great conversations. Cheers.

K            Cheers.