… and a Wedding.

If you are already married and therefore rightfully partial to the backdrop of your own ceremony, let me say that a close second will have to be the remote winey hills of eastern Slovenia. It’s shocking and worth so many words and photos and more words just because I had no idea that this existed where it exists. Bam upside your head gorgeous, and right feeling.

Every good wedding calls for scotch, even at 10am. So after breakfast the men of the village (well, about 5 of us) went to the groom’s room and sat with him, a finger of Bowmore in each glass. And there was much rejoicing. Suits were hung on the doortops with care, while the smell of lip balm and makeup filled the air. There was bustling and clicking, shaving and spraying, but not by anyone in our room. We had scotch, 15 year old scotch, and we had no intention of getting dressed too soon, just to seep sweat into nice suits on a hot, still Slovenian day. Besides, there was a groom to take care of.

I shaved my beard off eventually and raked the mole on my chin open, so I had another scotch while holding a reddening tissue to my lower jaw, smooth move baby. It stopped by the time everyone gathered downstairs in the bar hall around a monstrous table filled with meats and cheeses and twisted baked bread. Good thing. Tissue on the chin is a conversation killer.

Slovenian tradition calls for a wedding to occur on a Saturday, to have dinner and party, and for the guests to not leave the party until Sunday morning at sunrise. You do the math. Have you ever been to one of these?

I mean, there was the wedding, so lovely in the church. Then there was the procession along the road to our hotel, with a horse and buggy for the couple, led by a pair of slightly sloshed but good folk musicians, the accordian player especially swaying more than he needed. Once we arrived at the hotel a civil ceremony was performed outside, so both God and The Man had given their blessings. Oh and there was post-ceremonial wine passed around to all by the priest and then later by the justice of the peace. Then everyone walked upstairs to the hall for the great reception. To the background sounds of the increasingly sloshed accordian player in his dual role of verbose MC, we sat in lovely groups and began to eat, and this is where legends are made. We began with soup, then sliced elk meat, then a big salad, then a HUGE PLATTER of veal, chicken, elk, pork, and beef, enough for 8 people but intended for only the four people within reach, and we are talking massive platters, so four for a table of 16 people. Then we rested and out came the cake and deserts, and did I mention the cookies that were always there, and the water and the wine? Oh there were cookies, and oh there was wine. And after the dessert there came ANOTHER platter of schnitzel, baked and schnitzelled chicken and potatoes, and after that another soup, and finally, a wafer thin mint. We were like hobbits, with second dinner coming around 2am.

Basically, you eat in order to drink, and you drink to dance, you dance to eat, and all of it works in a circle until you realize the sun is rising and you are wide awake, and maybe even a little hungry again. At least one person failed to do the eating part of the circle and was a total mess. The rest of us were damn fine, and had a glass of wine at 6am to celebrate how cool we thought we were for pulling it off. We outlasted the entire Slovenian side of the family, but come to think of it, they had to drive home.