Helena

June 2, 2007

I got into Helena yesterday, picked up my friend Paye from the airport, then headed off to Gruber and Yana's rehearsal dinner. Their wedding was small so they had their rehearsal dinner at a park, grilled out and invited everyone who was coming to the wedding.

After the dinner, Paye and I decided to try to navigate our way around Helena and find the state capital building without a map. We failed, however if we remained persistent I'm sure we would have found it within an hour. Helena is small and the capital building quite dominant in the city's skyline.

Today Gruber and Yana got married in true Ukrainian fashion, starting at about 10am with the paying of the dowry. Ukraine is quite mountainous in the west so is based more on village life than cities and with each mountain-side acting as a barrier every village has its own unique dialect, traditions, and culture.

When a man decides he's going to marry, he travels around the village, gathering up as many villagers he can find to support him. He then goes to his potential bride's house, supported by the villagers and shouts at the house requesting his bride. Of course the bride's father refuses and tells them to go away, but no Ukrainian man, or in this case former Ukrainian Peace Corps volunteer would accept that.

So the groom offers up money to the bride's father, as did Gruber and the father of the bride accepts the money and sends out the ugly sister or in this case the dog with a white veil. So he must up the anti and dishes out more money, but again is refused, this time receiving his guy friend in a dress. Unlike myself, he wasn't disgusted by this and continued the bargaining until he emptied his wallet, the father surrendered and the bride, Yana emerged from the house.

A wedding wouldn't be Ukrainian without vodka, especially the home-made stuff that blinds people or the national favorite made of honey and spicy peppers, so shots of vodka were poured and distributed to each guest at the early hour of 10 or 11am. Once the vodka was gone, we all gathered in our cars and headed to the church, which in Ukraine would ideally just be down the street.

The wedding took place in English, Ukrainian, Russian, and Slovakian with translators present to help all those who weren't fluent in all four languages, which included everyone but the bride.

The wedding reception was at a ranch on a farm with a stream running through it. The scenery was better than any reception I've been to, the food excellent and Paye and I found good company with a guy formerly in the airline industry, who moved here to spend more time fly fishing.

During the reception the bride was stolen, again tradition and later returned upon Gruber's insistence that he did want to marry her and demanded that she be returned.

Nearing the end of the evening, the bride again left, however this time she left voluntarily. Yana returned in her everyday clothes, symbolizing the transition from single to married. It almost felt like this was more important and significant than the wedding ceremony itself for Yana.