Wedding Bread
While many break bread with their wedding guests over dinner, few but those of Ukrainian descent have baked that bread with such meaning and intent until now.
A trend that is old to some cultures and new to others is the idea of Wedding Bread. While it is a labor intensive project, it is a labor of love for those who adopt it.
Traditionally the bread is made of flour contributed by all of the bride and groom's families. Known as Korovai in the Ukraine, the women who prepare the bread are selected from among those friends of the bridal couple who are respectable and happily married be they young or middle-aged, who become known as the korovainystsi. The bread is made to symbolize community and the circle of life and is said to have the well wishes and good fortune of the family and the community as a whole baked right into it.
For some the korovai can replace the traditional wedding cake, and like a wedding cake can be decorated with figures of pine-cones, doves, geese and other forms, shaped out of dough. The doves represent the couples and other birds can represent their family and friends. The entire arrangement is then surrounded by a wreath of periwinkle which acts as a symbol of love and purity.
Smaller versions of the korovai can be created as wedding favors, allowing guests to take home with them some of the well wishes and good fortune. Another option for wedding bread that some brides exercise is the saving of the top portion which they dry out and varnish for display in their homes, turning it into a permanent reminder of their happy day, an act similar to saving the cake topper or other accessories from a wedding cake.
In Poland the bread is known as Syska and no wedding is ever held without the baking of it, with many additional smaller versions baked as favors for guests to share in the good fortune.
While you may not be a descendant or have Polish or Ukrainian blood in your past, choosing to follow the tradition of baking Wedding Bread is yet another way to imbue your special day with meaning and love.
©2008 Weddingstar Inc.
