Wedding Bells!

We had a wedding yesterday in our Dosvitok Street children ministry. Sveta Tolstonok, a staff member and daughter of Svetlana Tolstonok, our daily director, got married yesterday! So congratulations to the new couple! Ukrainian marriages are different (to me) in that the civil and religious parts of a wedding are separate. Only the State can make a marriage official under the law, so one must go to the government "wedding palace" or ZAGS, where the couple signs the official wedding registry and receives a certificate of marriage. ZAGS stand for the Registrar of the Act of the Citizens Status, a throwback to the USSR when right after the revolution in the 20's, the USSR banned marriage. Then when chaos erupted, the authorities decided they needed to formalize for legal purposes a union which was occurring and ZAGS was created. There is a ceremony at the ZAGS which reminds one of a somber Las Vegas wedding ceremony in the wedding palaces there. They also do a video montage for the couple and show it to the wedding guests immediately after. Very nice. Afterwards, the couple and their friends go to famous places around Kiev, usually monuments, lay flowers there and get their picture taken in front of these monuments. A church blessing of the marriage may occur the same day, sometime later or not at all. But everyone has a big party in the evening, a big reception.

Helen and I went to the ZAGS, but forgot our camera! We did have a cell phone camera, so here are a couple of fuzzy pictures:

Mother holds the traditional bread given to the couple with Grandma standing by.


Closeup of bread - The words say "Bread and Salt" the two basic necessities to start a home.


The happy couple....sigh, cell phone photos aren't the best...I'll post some better pictures later!