We have been getting quite a few e-mails and messages from people asking about Croatian wedding traditions.  Here are three very common traditions that we followed at our wedding.  Perhaps some of these may not be suitable for all weddings, but you can adjust these according to your needs:

• Rosemary Branch:  Here is probably the most common wedding tradition in Croatia. Rosemary symbolizes welcome to your wedding guests. Each guest receives a single branch (4-6 inches long) of rosemary which is pinned to their left side (just as corsages are in north America) as they walk in the reception hall.  If you can find some red-white-blue ribbon, about 1/4 inch wide, and tie a small bow at the bottom, that would be perfect!  It is a tradition that guests leave some money as a "donation" in a basket at the entrance.  This is a common tradition in Croatia, but people in north America may not be familiar with this concept.  We had a couple of our sisters hold the basket at the entrance and explain to our guests what the tradition is, as they were pinning the rosemary.  We made a few bucks :)

• Dance with the Bride:  Another "must have" Croatian wedding tradition.  At midnight, "Dance with the Bride" starts.  Basically, all (or willing) guests have a chance to "empty" their pockets to dance with the bride.  You have to throw some $$$ in the basket (no pocket change please!) which the maid of honour is holding and then you get to dance with the bride.  The length of your dance will depend on how "large" your "donation" was, it's up to the maid-of-honour to judge that.  The more money you give, the longer you dance, also you can do it more than once.  This was very prestigious thing in the "olden days", as people would spend hundreds of $$$ just to have the honour of dancing with the bride the longest.  The dance is still very popular today.  The dance is usually danced to Strauss's waltz "On the Beautiful Blue Danube".

• Croatian Schnapps:  It is the responsibility of the master of ceremony to entertain and welcome guests as well.  He would have a bottle of a domestic (home made) schnapps wrapped in a hand made towel and he would walk around offering shots to guests.  At the end of the night he gets to keep the towel in which the bottle was wrapped, as this is a very special gift.  All the towels were hand-made specifically for the wedding from hand-woven cotton and therefore are very unique.  (If you have hard time finding Croatian liquor, you can probably improvise with something else instead).

• Schnapps and Wedding Cake:  This one we came up with ourselves.  It is a modification of the above "Schnapps & MC" tradition.  As our guests lined up for the wedding cake, everyone was offered a shot of my dad's home made schnapps which my parents brought over from Croatia (how did they get by the Customs officers?).  Before all that we had a video camera set so that it took video of each person having the shot.  As this was the first time some of our Canadian friends had this kind of drink, you can just imagine all kinds of facial expressions... We had many laughs watching these videos later...

That's all for now.  We will post more as/if we remember.  Best wishes and good luck with your wedding.  Write us back and let us know what your guests thought about the traditions (if you use any)...

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