For many years Bonnie worked as the program coordinator for the Hansen Summer Institute where she was able to form long lasting friendships with young people from around the globe. As a result, as we travel, we are sometimes able to 
meet up with Hansen Alumni (or Fellows as they are called), and we have also been lucky enough to have been invited to several weddings. We recently attended one wedding in Israel (Shelly and Brian) and then one in Romania (Ramona and Jason).
Ramona has vast network of friends and colleagues, and as a result there were a lot of non-Romanians at the wedding. Lucky for us several of them were Hansen Fellows, and we got to hang out with lots of folks we know and love like Martye, Michelle, Leini and Allen. As a matter of fact, the whole gang was all in the same hotel with many of us sharing a giant suite. We also got to meet Allen’s wife Nina and Martye’s friend Rosanna. You can be sure there was lots of fun, home cooked meals and laughter. In keeping with our attempt to watch locally relevant films (the King and I in Thailand or Fiddler on the Roof in Israel) we watched a movie perfectly suited to Transylvania…The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Yes, we got to Do the Time Warp Again!
Bonnie, George and Michelle all arrived in Hunedoara (Ramona’s childhood home) late due to some weather issues affecting air travel. Despite the late hour, we were invited to Ramona’s parents’ house for a “bite to eat” which turned out to be a four-course meal of home-made delicacies. George started falling in love with Ramona’s mom, Rodica’ at the beginning of the first course and became a life long follower by the time dessert was served. We waited until the next day for the rest of the friends to arrive (poor Leini took two days to complete a simple flight from Norway).
Ramona and Jason’s wedding ‘extravaganza’ was like no other we have ever attended, it was so big it could not be contained in a single day, it took two very full days to pack it all in…
On the morning of first day of the wedding we were invited to tour Corvin Castle where the formal ceremony would take place the next day. The three-hour guided tour included a view of the torture chamber which once housed Vlad The Impaler (inspiration for the Dracula stories) and a bear pit where prisoners who had received a death sentence where thrown. Despite the ghoulish aspects, the castle itself was quite beautiful.
After the tour buses took everyone to a very small town called Lelese,
where Ramona’s grandmother lives. While waiting for the bride and groom we were treated to hand made doughnuts and cheese breads. We all crowded into a small country church, which was covered from floor to ceiling with amazing, hand painted bible scenes. When the couple and their chaperones arrived, we were all pleasantly surprised to see that they were dressed in traditional Romanian outfits. Ramona’s uncle, newly retired from his post as the villages’ priest, returned to the church to perform the engagement ceremony which was as filled with as much pageantry as most weddings.
With the engagement ceremony complete, everyone walked from the church through the village to Ramona’s grandmothers house for an amazing picnic lunch, full of hand-made food, home crafted brandies and liquor and a series of different meats grilled to perfection by Ramona’s dad, Vasile and his friends. We are told the party went on well into the night, we snuck off after several hours to greet the late travelers who had finally arrived at the hotel suite in Hunedoara.
While the engagement ceremony and picnic was very informal, the 
second day of the wedding was full on formal. I think everyone enjoyed getting spiffed up in suits and lovely dresses. The bus picked us up around noon and took us to the family home (where we had dinner two nights before). All the guest filled the street and generally stopped all traffic on the road in front of the house. Then we experienced another of the unique Romanian wedding traditions. The groom’s party, along with his male chaperone and his “spokesman” proceeded down the street, stopped at the house and knocked at the front door. The door was answered by the “spokesman” for the bride’s home. There is an initial exchange facilitated by drinking some very strong homemade liquor and then the formal negotiation. We will try to paraphrase the negotiation but please know that it was all in Romanian, some license may have been taken:
-
-
- Groom’s Side: “we understand that you have a bride in this house, bring us something lovely with flowers”
- Bride’s Side: disappears into the house and comes back with a nice hat adorned with flowers.
- Groom’s Side: “That is nice, but we really wanted something in a lovely dress”
- Bride’s Side: disappears into the house and comes back with a small doll in a dress.
- Groom’s Side: “This is cute but we really want a girl that can dance…”
- Bride’s Side: disappears into the house and comes back with a young girl (the flower girl from the wedding).
- Groom’s side: twirls the girl around and everyone agrees that she is lovely, has on a nice dress can indeed dance “But she is too young, we want a bride, not a child.”
- Bride’s Side: disappears into the house and comes back with Ramona looking amazing in her wedding gown. A collective gasp and cheer is heard from the crowd, the grooms representative spin her around to verify that she can dance, when he is satisfied, he hands her off the chaperone who also spins her around and finally she is passed to the groom who also spins her around. When everyone is satisfied with evidence of Ramona’s dancing skills she is accepted, the deal is stuck and the wedding party gets in a car to head to the chapel.
-
The wedding itself took place in the Chapel of the Castle, despite the small size of the chapel, the ceremony was quite grand and included crowns for both the bride and groom. After the ceremony there were many photos on the grounds of the castle, and then onto the buses to head to the reception.
As we entered the door we were greeted with glasses of champagne each with a
small dot of dry ice (the solid form of carbon dioxide) which made the champagne bubble and mist. This champagne was the first of many, many well thought out delights that added up to an amazing wedding reception. Other accents included a meal of five extremely robust courses, each was a treat all its’ own. In the hour or so break between each course there was traditional dancing, a photo booth, a clown and entertainment for the children, displays of sweets and nibbles and a full bar with a wide selection of mixed cocktails. After a cake cutting ceremony out in the
courtyard, at almost midnight, the guests were treated to a private fireworks. All in all an amazing two days of celebrating the matrimony of Ramona and Jason.
We would be remiss if we did not mention the gift bags that were given to each guest, one at arrival (full of all kinds of handy items and snacks) and one at the end of the event. Included in the bag that was handed out at the reception was a small bottle of brandy. It would be impossible for us to tell the story any better than the label on the bottle, so we have transcribed it below:
When Radica and Vasile Dragomire were blessed with Ramono, Rodica’s father created a special batch of Tuica, the Romanian national drink of plum brandy, which has been aging ever since in an oak and mulberry barrel hand built by Vasile’s father, patiently waiting to be shared in celebration this day…
After the wedding we packed up and back to Cluj where we spent a few more days exploring the local sights such as the amazing salt mines of Turda and a hike up the Bridal Veil waterfall.
Next up, we head to Oundle England, a small town outside of Birmingham where we will spend a month house sitting and looking after Georgie the dog and Alfie the cat. More on that later…
