Why Romani engagement ceremonies look like weddings
But are actually not.
The beating of drums that dwarfs all noise from the city around you. The entire tribe gathering - people from several neighborhoods coming in. Decorations, food preparations, the women all in one room hours in advance to do each other’s hair and exchange and try on clothes.
And above all, the bride and groom - to-be. He is in a suit, she: in a traditional gown and professional make up and hair.
Outsiders know, when they hear drums and see a crowd, it’s a Romani wedding. And it does look and feel exactly like a wedding.
But it’s not.
What is the difference?
A traditional Romani wedding takes place over three days and nights; the bride changes three gowns, one for each day, carrying specific symbolism.
In other words, a traditional wedding is expensive and requires enormous planning and preparations.
In our tribe, weddings don’t last for 3 days any longer. The reason for this is both poverty and the forced displacement by the municipality of dozens of families. So, weddings nowadays are one day long, but the effort, planning, and cost is still enormous.
There are multiple customs that take place on this day, starting from the soup tradition in the early morning.
As the time of the actual wedding nears by, people gather outdoors and play the “horo”/ “oro” dance, traditional here in the Balkans, where every important person in the tribe takes the lead for one lap, holding the bride by the hand, with everyone else following. There are also tables of food and drinks for everyone.
This is done to the drums of a Romani orchestra and this is what outsiders see. This is also the only part that is identical to an engagement ceremony.
Then, the wedding continues at a restaurant where several other customs and rituals take place.
An engagement, by comparison is “just” the gathering of everyone under the open sky, to celebrate, eat, drink, and dance.
Why is the engagement such a big deal?
We’ve shared before that Romani weddings don’t have an officiant and they don’t carry legal weight in mainstream society. A marriage between two Roma is made “official” by the presence of the tribe - and the drums.
The “legitimizing” happens in the act of celebrating. And for that, you need two things. The orchestra. And the tribe.
If the entire family gathers and celebrates, but there’s no orchestra, it would be a fantastic party, but not a true wedding, or welcoming of a child. It would be considered a “gathering.”
The link between the orchestra and the tribe is as strong as it is difficult to define. The orchestra is there to give expression to the joy. If it’s not there, the joy remains unexpressed. Unannounced. Hidden from the world. And if the orchestra is there, but the tribe is not, then whose joy is the orchestra expressing? Whose love? Whose welcoming? No ones. The music might still be loud, but it will be without fire.
From “Beating the Drums: Why Romani orchestras herald every celebration”
An engagement in the Romani world is called, here in Bulgaria, “svirene” and “razchuvane”, which loosely translates to “playing music” and “announcing” respectively. And the purpose is exactly this: to announce the new couple to the world.
An actual wedding might take place months into the future, depending on when the families of the bride and groom save enough money. Or it might not happen at all. This does not negate what was made “official” during the engagement, and namely: the new family.
The wedding does not make the couple “more” official than they were at the engagement. The purpose of the wedding is rather a bestowing of blessings - something the Roma take very seriously, which is why they lift mountains to be able to afford and prepare a wedding.
Here is what we wrote in this Instagram post under a picture from the engagement of one of Pepi’s nieces last January.
Nikita with her mother and now husband, Metodi, today on the Romani version of an engagement party. Nikita and Metodi will have a full wedding at a later date, depending on when their families will be able to afford it. So for now, they had what the Romani here in Bulgaria call “razchuvane” (best translated as “announcing”) and “svirene” (which translates as “playing music” and refers to having a Roma orchestra with drums and wind instruments.) She wears a traditional dress, the orchestra plays while family members take turns to lead a traditional dance called horo, and then we celebrate with food, drinks, and dancing. This is enough to legitimize the couple. Now they are an item, married by Roma custom, and committed. The families of the bride and groom are now linked forever and will call each other “brother”, “sister”, “uncle” as long as they live- even if Nikita and Metodi split up.
This is the entire point. An embrace. A claiming. A loud declaration - not to outsiders - but to the larger tribe and to the Gods in the sky:
“Look who is joining us.” “We are now family.”
“This woman is now my daughter.”
“From now on, we belong. She belongs to us, and we belong to her.”
