Some of you may remember that a while back I made some hearts for a young lady who was going to get married soon!

Well the wedding happened and I took a lot of pictures.

The couple is Ukrainian and she has a large family so a lot of her famiy made it to the wedding. They also helped with the food and did the clean up afterwards so we got to just leave and come back the next morning (for church) and it was all done!

A few things that were different from what I experienced in the states.

Weddings here aren’t official in a church except for a few places that are approved such as the Roman Catholic church. As such, couples often have to have two weddings - a civil one and if they want a church wedding so they can be officially married according to the country of Poland.

The couple had to wait for about 6 months in order to get approval to get married and then wait for a couple of months to find a “slot” that was open in the various city councils so they could fit it in. As such, they didn’t get married either in the town where the church is or our town, but in a nearby one.

This is before the wedding - and people were already sitting in the chairs so I couldn't get a nice shot of the empty building.

My general observation is that people in Poland and Ukraine come for the reception and the wedding is the bonus. In the states, in my experience, we go to a wedding to see a couple get married and the reception is a bonus.

They tend to have LOTS of food at receptions here. (Our reception many many years ago was simple snacks and cake and people went home to eat dinner. I realize various cultures are different and even different parts of the US are different.)

Our couple was different from a lot of them because they didn’t serve everyone family style - we used a buffet style. Let me explain.

We used the same main room of our church for both - the ceremony and then we cleared it out and set up the tables. It’s also the same room where we set up the quilts for the quilt give-away! :)

Let me show you a photos of how we set up the reception. While we were doing that, the couple was outside greeting people.

We did have the couple sit down while my husband gave the sermon - though it wasn’t long. They do that a lot here, but sometimes have the couple face the audience. We that would be a little intense on the couple, and goes against the idea that they are supposed to be listening to the sermon.

There was no special music, unity candle, unit salt, etc. It was just a simple ceremony where the bride walked in, then there was prayer by both sides of the young people, and then went on to a congregational song (which is different from anything I’d experienced in the USA), and the vows, sermon, etc.

I was kind of stuck sitting at the piano the whole time because there weren't empty seats up near the front where I could scoot off to. So I had prime view. I had to play for the processional and recessional and the congregational song (*Amazing Grace*).

But let me show you the pics I have. I’m not showing too many, because you don’t know anyone anyway - so I’ll show the food, which is most interesting, and how the chairs were set up, etc.