A wedding by a 150-years-old Bulgarian ritual in the heart of the Balkan Mountains

Hristo Dimitrov – choreographer, producer and director of Balgare ensemble and Albena Vekova – folk singer, soloist of the formation, swore fidelity on a green meadow in Ribaritsa, Teteven region. Neither of the two has any connection with the place, they just like it.

August 21. The wedding began with the shaving of the groom, so that he would enter the marriage purified. A ritual cotton scorching against evil eye followed, in the four cardinal points – East, West, North and South. The groom and his retinue rode off on carts from his house for the “home” of the best man. Gunshots resounded all the time from the groom’s retinue – they were the “army” that was to take the bride-to-be. One of the men was dancing holding a rooster in his hands – a symbol of fertility.

They all went to take the bride who was covered with a red veil, a symbol of purity. When leaving the house, her mother gave her an egg which Albena slipped into her bosom so that it fell on the ground and broke. Then she stepped over it leaving the evil things behind and entering marriage purified.

Hristo wore Macedonian full-bottomed breeches, a blue shirt (they wear them only in Thrace), but Macedonian embroideries and a Northern Bulgarian jacket. Albena’s dress is a prototype of a costume of the folk singer Nadezhda Hvoineva, hand made.

All guests wore traditional costumes.

20 kaba pipes and mummers – belogashti and badjatsi (according to their costumes and the cowbells round their waists) – expelled the evil spirits from the wedding.

There were improvised wrestling games.

The whole wedding went like the weddings 150 years ago. Hristo and Albena swore fidelity by themselves in an improvised chapel in the meadow. The celebration continued till midnight with wild dances – horos and rachenitsas. When it grew dark, the guests enjoyed the traditional fire dances.

The ritual, borrowed from the Bulgarian national traditions and customs from different parts of the country, was performed after the script of the ethnographer Nikolay Nikov.

Witnesses were the young couple’s friends Anton Kostadinov and Didi Nikolova.

President Parvanov sent presents to the newly weds.