I planned to write blog regularly in August, as u can see i didn't manage. But now, i would like to pay the debt back with a relatively long post about weddings. I hope you enjoy. Now my plan is that i write 2 more such long posts during the next 8-10 days.

During the last 2 weeks i have been to 2 weddings. Maybe it is interesting for you dear readers, how weddings in Russia are, and yes, if u write "russia wedding" to google there are probably hundreads of articles, therefore i don't want to explain you how weddings in Russia are, just tell u dear reader my experiences regarding these two weddigs.

The two were basically similar, and according to what i know about Russian wedding traditions, they were both quite traditional.

The first wedding was of Dasha and Marat, Dasha you can know from the blog, Marat also, but he appeared more rarely. The wedding started with "vykup", where i didn't take part, so for me it started at metro station Uralmash, at wedding registration office (Z.Ag.S., 3ArC, on first picture). It was Friday, i went there after work, in the office, weddings are held every 15 minutes. The layout of events is: The couple brings passports to the office secretary, who makes a short speech, at the end, asks the couple for the two "Da"-s, and gives them the certificate of registration of the marriage. The relatives, friends congratulate after that. The registration office is beautiful, it has one big hall where the registration ceremony takes place, and 2-3 smaller halls where people can wait, and where after the registration, while professional pictures are taken of the couple, guests can drink champagne, and get to know each other :)

So then the couple comes out of the ZAgS building, and the crowd is waiting for them to throw flower flakes and different kind of things like rice and paper rolls.

After this, more pictures are taken in different locations, in this case at Sverdlovsk railway headquarters (beautiful huge building with nice well-maintained small park in front of it) and at Botanic garden, but although that was closed (it's open till 5 on weekdays and on weekend it's closed, so it's very easy to visit by people who work), they still managed to take nice photos in the green area in front of the park's entrance. The couple was transported by a white Audi owned by some friend, lead by two motorbikes (friends). Others, including me, were transported by a tourist bus, it was very hot and the bus didn't have air conditioning, and of course useless to say that there was traffic jam (one big, consisting the whole city), so it took an hour to complete around 8-10kms in the city, and this is better than usual rush hour speed.

The rest of the celebration took place in a "cottage" (second picture), but this cottage has nothing to do with the European meaning of cottage, it's a huge modern house, with many rooms, 3 floors, sauna, biliard, and a big hall where the wedding dinner was. The "cottage" also has a crew of around 5-10 people, who serve the dinner, operate the sauna, etc.

Renting such cottage is of course very expensive, but the conditions are luxorious.

Of course when before the wedding i was told that the wedding will be at a rented cottage, i thought that we go to the forest to some wooden house where we make fire and cool something in the fire, then boil some water for tea, etc. So it was completely different from what i expected, but it was good.

The dinner was delicious, i liked it very much, and of course i tried to eat as much as i can from the so good food, but i couldn't eat all fish and i already felt my stomach ...

There were quite a lot of guests, it took long while everybody made some small speech before giving the present, which was only a lot of money (of course i don't know everybody's amount, but over 100 euros for sure) in most of the cases, we gave real present along with the money, Irina did, and a guy who i don't know. Our real present was a wooden spice shelf with 12 spices from Lidl (bought in Hungary).

Some people prepared with short performances, they were cool, not like the animator woman who was quite annoying in my opinion, but seemingly not everybody shared this (not expressed) opinion, some people enjoyed here games more than me. The speeches were surprisigly original, it seems that people prepared for it, some of them was really sensitive for the audience.

There was also selling different things, like DVD of the wedding and the first slice of cake, based on who gives more, they were sold for around 40 euros each. I didn't take part in the game (i don't feel myself rich and i am not sure if i would like to shout it out if i was), but a lot of people did.

The party was cool, dancing, sauna, table tennis and biliard were done by me, i enjoyed it a lot! Gongartualtions hereby to Dasha and Marat!

I shortly write about the second wedding, which was between Katya and Lyosha (for both of them, first appearance on the blog). I will try to point out the differences only. Firstly, there were less people, there was no bus, just 3-4 cars (rented, with driver). The couple was transported using a white rented Mercedes. At this wedding, i also went to "vykup", at Katya's (very cool) flat, Layosha and his friends arrived that Lyosha had to answer different questions about Katya, or, without knowing the answer, "bribe" the firends of Katya (incl. Yulia) to let them preceed still. It was funny, and Lyosha fortunately managed, so They could go to the registration office after drinking some champagne with us. The registration office was a different one, but same system, wedding every 15 minutes, and there was 20 mins delay so we had to wait. I was a bit afraid that due to the delay the registration staff will not give full hearth, but i was wrong, the ceremony was nice and they didn't hurry to much.

Taking pictures was mostly done indoors, because it was raining (although a little bit by the river Iset, on picture). In the wedding after this, a lot of already heavily drunken guys arrived to the registration office with a limousine, so i was glad that "our" wedding looks much more normal.

The dinner was at hotel Moscow (in Ekat), in a separated room. With the food there was no difference, again a lot of delicious fish, and shrimps. I ate a lot, poor my stomach. :)

The animation person was better, the games were less stupid, i enjoyed them more. I even took part. Of course not in the one with money, which was even more strange (understand: awful) than last time, but only one, not three. And the normal games were good, i even "won" (everybody won) a drink, Yulia won hand desinfection tissues). Here, we also only gave money, no real present. Dancing, talking was the remaining part of the wedding, after 10pm the thing ended, the couple left for their hotel room, we went to city center to drink and go home.

The second wedding, with it's much less people and better animator girl, was more comfortable for me, but in the first one, sauna and table tennis was cool.