Armenia: Wedding

Kyle’s Journey in Armenia attends a local wedding and offers a fascinating account of some of the traditions which make tying the knot a day to remember. Although Armenians pride themselves on being the first nation to officially adopt Christianity as its state religion, most of the customs take place outside Church and in this case, sometimes bypass it completely.

For whatever reasons, most weddings in the first Christian nation don’t actually take place in a church. Some do, this one didn’t. So I can’t comment on the official “wedding ceremony” - most people settle for the registration certificate and call it a day. What they lack in religious officialism they make up for with the reception.

The first step is for the groom and his closest friends to go retrieve the bride. This, of course, can not be accomplished without a convoy of at least 6 cars, fully decorated, honking their horns and driving through town. My host brother’s Lada was the lead car, which gave it two extra responsibilities. First, it had to be adorned with a dead fox sprawled out on the front:

The second responsibility is stealing a chicken from the bride’s family, which as you can see above was also a great success. So after we completed the theft (they live in an apt building so it wasn’t so easy) we picked up the bride (which is symbolic of her leaving her house behind forever) and coming back home in the same obnoxious manner. Actually being in the car was fun though - a lot better than listening to it from your bedroom while trying to take a nap.

Cross posted from Global Voices Online.