Post-Wedding Celebration
On the morning after the wedding, the parents of the bride visit her in her new home, the household of her new husband. They bring gifts and acknowledge that their daughter is no longer part of their family. In some regions, the couple is first awakened by the groom’s family and friends and given a mock breakfast, foods that look good, but taste terrible. An example is pastries with raw vegetables, such as beets, inside. After teasing the couple, the family serves them a nice breakfast.
In the afternoon, most villages have a post-wedding carnival called the tsyhanshchyna. After the solemn wedding service, this is a raucous celebration with drinking and cross-dressing. Wedding guests dress as gypsies, doctors, or members of the opposite sex. Sometimes they capture either the parents or the godparents of the bride and groom and dress them in the clothes of the opposite gender. They parade the costumed elders through the street in a cart and dunk them in the river or other handy body of water. If the parents or godparents are not dunked into the water, they can be taken to the local pub and forced to buy everyone a round of drinks or other treats.
