Paranoia and other pleasant things

How to be a Nasznagy at a Szekely wedding - the beginner’s guide

Glossary of terms:

hu:Nasznagy/ ro: nas = Non translatable, very honorable role at the local weddings, sort of a best man / matron crossed with a godparent. Reserved usually for financially stable married couples that are in very good terms with the newlyweds.

hu:Szekely = Hungarian ethnic group mostly living in the counties of Harghita, Covasna and Mureş in Romania, of which Robi is a part of. The older males are recognoscible by their large mustaches and the fact that they always have a pocket knife on them.

hu:Kurtos Kalacs = see this post

This weekend, for the very first time in our lives, we were invited to serve as nasznagy at a wedding. And not just any wedding, mind you, but Robi’s middle sister, Beata’s wedding. We accepted, left Timi at my mom’s and drove the necessary 200 km to Miercurea Ciuc where the event was taking place.

Friday evening was spent visiting one of the grandmas that is in the hospital for a bad case of neuropathy after Zona Zoster, catching up with the latest news about the family, getting a decent manicure (me) and eating sarmale (Robi)

Saturday morning after we cut into small portions 10 tons of cookies, pies and cakes me, the bride and Robi’s little sister went to the beauty salon. The bride was in for a make-up and getting her hair done, while Csilla (aka little sister) and me surrendered to an unexpected outburst of masochism and got our eyebrows plucked.

Here’s Betty, relaxing while her cleavage is made all tanned and shiny:

….while Csilla is laughing, not knowing that she’s about to be put on the torture table.

Soon after we got back home Csilla’s boyfriend Romeo showed up, looking like a younger and more phlegmatic version of Denis Leary.

….followed by the groom himself, who brought Betty her bouquet.

We got going to the town hall where they said their “I do”s in front of the mayor, who gave them a colorful speech about how this was an important day not only for their families but for the town itself and gave them some DVDs and a book about the county’s spas “for when you’ll get older and need it”. Nutty fellow, that mayor.
We, as the nasznagyok, took a pic with the fresh Kassay couple (it’s not me that’s so small - it’s them that are so tall)

Next stop was the church for the religious wedding. Robi dropped a quiet WTF when the altar server disappeared (she apologized later for that, although I still haven’t got a clue why she left) without realizing that even as an English abbreviation, it’s still swearing.I topped that when I wrote my name wrong on the church papers that certified the marriage. To my credit, it wasn’t on the official papers, just the priest’s reminder, but still … the lack of sleep showed.

The party contained lots of food and dancing (see the brown circles on the table? That’s what’s left of a meter long Kurtos Kalacs after meeting a hungry szekely for five minutes).

A traditional part of any wedding around here is the “stealing of the bride”. A few inebriated youngsters take away the bride when she’s not properly looked after, and release her only after a ransom (bottle of whisky / case of beer) is payed or the groom / nasznagy/ groom & nasznagy perform some idiotic task (strip on a table, carry around the mother in law on the back, shouting that they have the best mother in law on the world, sing a silly song ..you get the idea) In our case, we as the nasznagyok had to dance a Lambada. Robi didn’t want to have anything to do with it, but I convinced him to dance normally and threw in a few hip rotations for the delight of the audience. No one was harmed during the dance and so the bride was returned.
I asked Robi a few times to dance when some nicer songs were sung

……and he accepted every time, although the expression on his face says enough about the suffering I was putting him through. The man HATES dancing .

After midnight, the cake was served ..

.. and people started coming to the young couple to give them their gifts (in Romania, mostly money, so they can buy themselves something substantial from the cumulated sum). After all the money was in the basket, me and the nasznagy lady from the groom’s side retreated to a small room where we counted it and made a list with everybody’s contribution (it’s sort of an investing system - you’re supposed to give roughly the same sum when you go to their kids’ wedding). The lady was fast as lightning with the counting - turns out she used to be an accountant before retirement. After we finished, we told the couple how much they raised and they seemed pleased, so me and Robi made a discrete exit after kissing the newlyweds.
We left Miercurea Ciuc the next day in the afternoon, drove half of the distance in a thick fog which made us to take the wrong exit from Medias. Our luck was that we asked for directions two gipsy peasants that were walking on the side of the road and they were kind enough to tell us where we took the wrong turn in the town and what would be the right one, bless their hearts.
We arrived around nine PM, picked up an extatic Timi (Mamaaaaaa! Tataaaaaaa!) from her grandparents and finally went to bed around eleven, happy to be home.

Posted under: on the road