Crossing off the List: A Georgian Wedding!

gamarjoba!

One of my first posts on this blog contained a Bucket List of sorts for my time in Georgia.  One of those was to attend a Georgian wedding or funeral and I’m happy to say that I accomplished getting invited to attend a Georgian wedding this past Sunday (thankfully it wasn’t a funeral, but I’m still here for a few more months, so we’ll have to wait and see if that invite ever comes). Getting invited wasn’t very hard, it was basically my host mother Tamila informing me that I was coming with her, Beso and our neighbor Maia to the celebration.  So, I didn’t technically go to the religious service, but the real fun happens at the supra which occurs afterward anyways. 

A supra (the Georgian word for “table-cloth”) is a feast that is central to Georgian culture.  Depending on the size of the supra, Georgians will erect huge, long tables for numerous guests to sit at while they continually pile plates of food on top of one another and the flow of wine literally never ends (people actually roam around the table refilling pitchers constantly).  I like to think of it as Thanksgiving dinner in terms of the amount of food but supras occur more frequently.  Another important aspect of any supra is the Tamada or the “toast master.”  This is the individual who personally delivers each toast throughout the meal.  They toast to just about anything you can think of: Georgia, God, the motherland, family, parents, children, America etc.  They should be good orators and are thought to be impressive because they can consume a ton of alcohol throughout the supra (without appearing too drunk).  Typically, wine is served in little glasses and it is tradition that men will chug the glass of wine for each toast offered and then refill it for the next one (basically, Georgian men are socially allowed to drink a lot).  Sometimes the men will even bring out drinking horns and fill them with wine and take turns drinking all of it and making toasts that way.

So, my first mini supra basically occurred the night I got to Apeni when Beso toasted his homemade wine to everything and Tamila cooked a bunch of food.  My first official supra was a few weeks ago when Tamila, Beso and I went to celebrate the baptism of a baby (Beso’s godson’s newborn daughter).  That one had about thirty people around a long table and then men were seated at one end and the women at the other.  The men spent a big portion of the meal taking turns drinking from one of two drinking horns passed around and making a bunch of toasts to various things.  The women are in charge of refilling all of the plates of food and the men are in charge of keeping the wine glasses full.  This particular supra definitely displayed the rigid gender roles that are still prevalent in Georgian society.  Also, keep in mind that a supra can last well into the night, so you might imagine it as more of a marathon event of eating, drinking and socializing rather than a sprint.

But this wedding celebration Sunday night could be seen as a supra on steroids.  Once the bride and groom arrived from the ceremony everyone sat down not just on one long table but at about five that completely filled the yard of the house and each ended up being packed with guests sitting shoulder to shoulder.  On each table was two huge loaves of bread, a variety of drinks and at least one wine pitcher placed every three people.  And then, in typical supra style the food was placed on plates, on top of plates, on top of plates; I literally had to lift plates up just to see what else there was to eat.  And my wine glass was never empty, Beso and some random Georgian guy sitting across from me made sure of that.  All I could really say was “gaumarjos!” (cheers) and keep drinking every time a new toast was made by the Tamada!  The food was traditional Georgian with khachapuri, homemade cheese, eggplant with a walnut sauce and meat speared and grilled on these metal stake things (I can never remember the name of this, but it was the first meal my family ever made me). Here are a few pictures that I took:

It rained all day basically, so that's why the blue tarps were up.

A table soon to be full of people and more food!

I tried to give you all a sense of the amount of food there was.  So just imagine this but everywhere on the table.

Music was playing the entire time and after a while everyone got up to start dancing in the traditional Georgian style.  This Youtube video basically gives you a small sense of the kind of dancing I saw at the wedding; a lot of outstretched arms and kicking legs for the most part.  It was actually really cool and entertaining to just watch and hearing some traditional Georgian music is something that I’ve been looking forward too.  They did give America/English a shout out when they played that “Give Me Everything” song by Pitbull and literally everyone went and danced to it, yet I’m pretty sure only me and the Peace Corps volunteer I met there were the only ones who know what the song actual says. 

In the end, this Georgian wedding was quite similar to any wedding we’ve probably attended in the United States and elsewhere.  It was really neat to be able to share this day with the happy couple (who according to Tamila are 22 years old also. Apparently I need to get a move on according to Georgian marriage age standards!).  There were a lot of toasts made to the couple, a lot of food, a lot of pictures and a lot of laughter that filled the yard well into the night.  I might be spending the next four months in the midst of a different culture, but Sunday night definitely reminded me of moments I’ve had back home when someone is married and everyone is just happy to be with family and friends and to celebrate the beginning of something new.  I’m starting to realize just how similar two seemingly different cultures can actually be at the core of it all: love, marriage, family and new beginnings.

One more post today, get excited!

Kelsey

P.S. Beso offered to fully pay for my wedding in Georgia should I ever decide to come back here and get married. I politely declined but it sure was nice of him to offer!