In the past, wedding parties were not attended for lavish parties, but for the people, songs and customs. Ljubica Ljuba Slišković, the widow of Ivanov from Sovic aka Ugarava, recalled what weddings looked like in western Herzegovina in the 1960s.
Through memories of her own wedding, she brought us back to the time when wedding parties were smaller, but more sincere.
25 guests arrived at her wedding. Homemade chicken soup, sarma, stewed lamb and veal were cooked, and the tables were mostly filled with wine, vines, pears and pelinkovac, it says. Agroklub.ba.
“Čaća has wine, there were a lot of vines and in our country wine and brandy were the main thing,” says Ljubica.
You leave your daughter and mother and go away drinking
There were no roasters or modern equipment, everything was prepared on a wood stove. She remembers the moment of leaving her parents’ home the most.
“The hardest thing for me was leaving the yard and my parents. But love does its thing. There were a few tears, but not really, because you go for the one you love. You leave your mother and daughter to fight, as they know, and you go away drinking,” recalls the daughter of Nikola and Mile Šimić from Drinovac.
The wedding day had its own turn. After gathering at the bride’s house, they went to the church for the wedding, then for a short gathering, and then to the groom’s house, where the mother-in-law was waiting at the stove, and then the song, the round and the celebration began. Locals and neighbors came to see the bride, and ganga was drunk.
“I’m sorry that the youth, even my sons, don’t practice it, they don’t listen. But now everyone complains about everyone – how they got ready, how they dressed, what they ate. Well, my God, it didn’t happen before, no one complained about anything to anyone,” says Ljuba.
Washing hands in the sink
A particularly interesting custom was washing the hands of the wedding party after dinner. The bride, with the help of her maid of honor, brought a bowl of water and a towel, and the guests then presented her with money. But the real fun was when someone secretly stole the bride’s shoe. Then the humorous “sale” of the shoe began, along with jokes and teasing.
“When that shoe was taken off, it was the fiercest. The funniest, because some flaw was revealed, someone related to you like this or you hid something from someone, so it was revealed. It was funny, but it was nice and fun,” he tells us, adding that no one got angry because of such jokes
Although many times have passed, Ljuba does not hide her regret that many customs have disappeared. He believes that there used to be less material wealth, but more togetherness, ganga and companionship.
However, something has remained the same, and these are folk sayings that still live among people today. One of them says: “He who has not built a house and his daughter is a widow, does not know what an expense is.
