What is with Georgia?

[ML]

Well I hope the alcohol killed the germs!!

Would be bad to have "athlete's foot" in mouth area.   

[TheTraveler]

Well I hope the alcohol killed the germs!!

Would be bad to have "athlete's foot" in mouth area.   

haha!  there's a great wedding pic floating around of me "shooting the boot" -- drinking champagne from one of dhrw's wedding shoes!

[missAmeno]

So... I don't need to know this stuff about UW, unless I am courting a 60-year old 

I am not courting a 60-year old 

Slumba, sorry but I lost track of your logic.
As your previous comment was question directed personally to me ... are you implying I am 60yo? Or this comment unrelated to previous one and you are under impression that only 60yo women follow traditions?

[Daveman]

Nothing like a bad case of Athlete's Face to go along with a hangover...

Does the "shoe" have special ceremonial significance? or merely a handy item(s) used for the games?

[missAmeno]

Does the "shoe" have special ceremonial significance? or merely a handy item(s) used for the games?

I could be wrong but this tradition more likely have been started by hussars.

Hussars’ gaiety around a bottle of wine, or vodka, and their rolling swagger were well known. Opening the bottle of wine with a saber cut and drinking from woman’s shoe were ones of their many customs.

http://www.napolun.com/mirror/napoleonistyka.atspace.com/Russian_cavalry.htm

[ghost of moon goddess]

I could be wrong but this tradition more likely have been started by hussars.
http://www.napolun.com/mirror/napoleonistyka.atspace.com/Russian_cavalry.htm

Yes, shooting a lady's shoe is the hussars' style of drinking 

Actually, they (hussars) poured a drink into a tumbler that was sitting in a lady's shoe. The challenge: holding the shoe by the stem heel makes it difficult to prevent the drink from falling out of the tumbler and to avoid spilling it all over the shoe when crooking the elbow 
Note, the shoes from which hussars knocked back drinks always stayed dry

Another bizarre wedding custom:  starring the maid of honor and best man

[Daveman]

Yes, shooting a lady's shoe is the hussars' style of drinking 

Actually, they (hussars) poured a drink into a tumbler that was sitting in a lady's shoe. The challenge: holding the shoe by the stem heel makes it difficult to prevent the drink from falling out of the tumbler and to avoid spilling it all over the shoe when crooking the elbow 
Note, the shoes from which hussars knocked back drinks always stayed dry

So one custom's origin seems to have been identified... we seemed to have skipped that, with or without tumbler. Or perhaps I was unaware that I was supposed to grab a shoe.

Someone stealing the bride's shoe and all the ladies piling their shoes together for me to sort out and match back to each one were our shoe related events.

There was another event, which by that point, I was having a little trouble following the "organizer's" Russian... If I recall correctly this was also related to "rival clans" or "the kidnapped bride scenario" - but I could easily be mistaken about that.  Anyway, people were divided into two "sides", and then were stripping off clothing - shoes, belts, socks, shirts, "whatever", and creating two "race" lines by placing the them end to end on the floor.   Is that one common?

It's very interesting to learn more about these activities and where they began.  They party was also an absolute blast of a time and I made some friends there who still keep in touch with me.

Another bizarre wedding custom:  starring the maid of honor and best man

Hah! that's wild.  That lady moved that shot glass around, seemingly, without spilling a drop. 

The only really stand out "bizarre" even that I can recall about our wedding was when the guys dressed up almost what a western person would think of as "clown-like", though that isn't entirely accurate - big red afro hair, some without shirts, one was in his underwear I think, etc, and dancing around like that for at least one or two traditional Ukrainian/Russian songs.

[missAmeno]

The correct way to drink from shoe is from a tumbler placed in a shoe. Have no idea how started drinking from actual shoe. If I had to guess how it started I would go with reason that more vodka fits in shoe than in a tumbler.
Ukrainians party hard (well they work hard too). And weddings show very well how Ukrainians partying. Abundance of food, excess of горілка, гопацульки and funny pranks.

Most weddings have тамада (Master of Ceremonies) who arranges variety of entertaining games as well as encourages guests to drink lots and dance till they are not capable anymore.
Daveman, what you described is the games organised by тамада. None of the games by themselves are part of our traditions but it is tradition to have entertaining games on wedding. So games would vary from one wedding to another but most weddings would have some kind of games.
There is few things that have been traditions for centuries and still common on weddings these days. Example, removal of bride's veil (in old days wreath) and dance of all unmarried girls present on wedding with that veil. Every girl in that dance would wear veil for few minutes. Another example, groom giving boots as a gift to his mother in law. By tradition he must wash her feet and put boots on her feet by himself, after that they should be having one dance together. Some still adhere this tradition as it is, some just give gift and have a dance. Also these days some just get any type of shoes instead of exactly boots.
Weddings normally celebrated for 3 days (back in XX century it was 5 - 15 days). On 2nd or 3rd day is done something that called циганщина (have no idea how to translate it, it comes from word циган - gypsy). Some of guests and relatives dress up in costumes (often in gypsy clothes and that is why it is named циганщина), women must be dressed as men and men as women. Their tasks are to go on the streets and amuse people who they meet on the way, visit guests who attended wedding on 1st day, steal something from them and invite them to come back to wedding. Also they take parents of groom and bride for a ride on some kind of cart/wagon/trailer to river or lake.

So if one day while you are in Ukraine you see something similar to what is on videos below know those people didn't loose their mind, they are celebrating wedding and it is their duty to amuse and entertain people on the streets.








PS. Mods, I think it is time to split thread.

[ghost of moon goddess]

Hah! that's wild.  That lady moved that shot glass around, seemingly, without spilling a drop. 

She would have failed, had the ''terrain'' been rough 

[Gator]

She would have failed, had the ''terrain'' been rough 

 

I was thinking the same.  Even if the terrain had been parked carefully, if I were a young man and some young woman did a finger dance up and down the length of both my legs, well....(I once got a tingle as a teenager when a seamstress at a men's clothing store measured my inseam).

Good to see you back Ghost of Moon Goddess!

[mendeleyev]

These "witnesses" (name for what we speak of as maid of honour), are pretty good. It reminded me of this sexually driven commercial when a Russian hottie takes on a Russian arm wrestling champion...and wins.

[2tallbill]

Thanks for the info.  Since I know nothing about the culture in Georgia, I was interested in what she actually said and also if someone knows more about the Georgian culture that has to do with stealing brides.   

They don't have a culture of stealing brides in Georgia. I see that there
have been several posts where it was explained. Late to the party again
I see

[Daveman]

They don't have a culture of stealing brides in Georgia. I see that there
have been several posts where it was explained. Late to the party again
I see

There was a documentary I caught within the last couple of years or so on the bride kidnapping topic.  I think it was filmed in Kyrgyzstan.  The synopsis is that the woman is abducted by the man's family and then taken into the man's (family's) home.  Then the women of the man's family take over and berate the woman for a few days until she acquiesces to the marriage.  I think, iirc, that if she doesn't capitulate within a few days then she is released back to her family and the man's family moves on to the next abductee.