Essential Albanian Wedding Traditions
An Albanian bride and groom posing for the camera. Image via Pinterest.
Wedding celebrations show the beauty and core values of any culture. Albanian weddings are a great example. These traditions are centered around family, honor, and hospitality. They are so vital to Albanian culture that they often last an entire week!
While you will find slight variations depending on which area of the country the couple is from, Albanian wedding traditions have been honored and celebrated for centuries, allowing guests to experience the true beauty of their culture.
So whether your family is from Albania or you are marrying into the culture, you can add some of these rituals to your modern wedding ceremony to honor your roots.
Let’s look at important Albanian wedding traditions couples follow to ensure they start their union off on the right foot and enjoy a long, happy marriage!
Pre-Wedding Rituals
Massive Engagement Parties
Albanian weddings celebrate not only the joy of a couple tying the knot, but two families joining together. This means engagement celebrations are almost as big as the wedding event itself!
Families plan large banquets, during which the bride and groom exchange rings as a symbol of their commitment to each other. In Albanian culture, this union is extremely difficult to break up, so it’s a serious gesture.
During this party, the groom’s family and close friends will go to the bride’s home or area of the banquet hall to ask for her hand. They will bring gold jewelry and perfume. The bride’s family will serve coffee and sweets, like Turkish Delight. When the families consume these together, the “deal” is officially set!
The Dowry
Like many cultures, the bride brings a dowry with her to her new home. Traditionally, this consists of linens, fabrics, and home goods to set up their new nest. Nowadays, the groom's family will take the bride shopping for everything she will need to fill her new home.
The groom will bring two or three elders from his family to pick up the bride and take her shopping at her store of choice for bedding, pots, pans, and decor. This is meant to show status and demonstrate that he can take care of her and their future family.
Sending the Bridal Gown
As the wedding week draws near, a group of important members of the groom’s family will bring a wedding gown and other beautiful clothing to the bride’s home. This usually happens on the Wednesday or Thursday prior to the official wedding week.
Some areas of Albania have the groom’s family present these items in a suitcase, along with rice, candies, and basil to represent fertility, sweetness, and good energy. They also bring flowers to encourage the relationship to bloom.
During this exchange, the bride’s family would also present members of the groom’s family with gifts. Aunts, cousins, parents, and siblings will be recognized.
Albanian Wedding Ceremony Traditions
An Albanian bride being walked around the room. Image by via Pinterest.
Married on a Thursday or Friday in Small Ceremonies
In Albania, the legal wedding doesn’t hold as much weight as the rest of the celebration, so couples will often bring witnesses to the courthouse to handle the paperwork. This is done during the week, followed by a small dinner.
Some choose to have a religious ceremony at a mosque or church. However, it’s still a small celebration compared to what’s to come. Taking care of this component before the banquets begin allows the bride and groom to focus on other important traditions and carves out more time to party!
Eating Bread and Honey
Before the bride enters the banquet, the groom’s mother will wait at the door to feed her bread and honey. This tradition is meant to ensure the relationship is as sweet as honey.
Honey is very symbolic and shows up later in the celebration. The eldest female in the bride’s family will present her with honey and salt at the end of the festivities to bring luck and fortune to the happy couple.
Kulaçi i dasmë
A traditional Albanian wedding lasts five days. The groom’s family will begin celebrating on Friday or Saturday with lavish banquets. They will pick up the bride to join in on the second day, with the wedding night being that evening.
The next day, the bride’s family will join the festivities and they will continue partying well into the evening of the third and fourth days. This provides plenty of ways to incorporate non-traditional wedding roles and give all your special guests a role!
Traditions for After the Wedding
A bride spinning her dress around her guests. Image via Amazon.
Dita e grave
Also known as Women’s Day, this takes place on a Monday within the five day wedding celebration. During this time, the women of both families join together to sing, dance, and celebrate the happy couple.
Plate After Plate
No wedding celebration would be complete without an abundance of food and drink. And Albanian weddings are no exception! You can expect lots of traditional meat-centered dishes, particularly beef, presented with a variety of sauces.
Guests receive multi course meals, so plate after plate brimming with meat, potatoes and sauces. Occasionally, rice and vegetables are served, but the focus is on protein. After these dishes are served, wedding cake and desserts, like pastries, will be offered.
Dancing the Shota
While food is incredibly important, the traditional dances are the highlight of any Albanian wedding!
The most popular is called the Shota or Shote. The bride and groom dance in the center of all of their guests. The bride begins the dance, waving a handkerchief in the air. The groom will dance around her, eventually taking the handkerchief and burning it. This symbolizes the two becoming one.
If the couple does not want to perform this one-on-one dance, they can do the modern variation, where all of the guests receive a handkerchief and perform the dance together, waving them in the air. It’s a beautiful sight to behold!
The Napoleon
The Napoleon is a popular Albanian wedding song that comes with a unique traditional dance. The purpose is for the elder relatives to shower the couple with money, which will help them begin their life off on the right foot.
Guests will also bring small bills to shower on the wedding band as a tip. The more they like the band, the more money they will throw on to the dance floor!
Money in the Shoes
Another post-wedding tradition is the Money in the Shoes ritual. When a bride enters her new home, a young boy will remove her sandals as a sign of respect. She will have hidden money in the sandals before her arrival.
After he finds the money, the little boy will sit on the bride's lap. This is to encourage the first child to be male and act as a ritual to encourage good luck moving forward.
What to Expect When Attending an Albanian Wedding
A street of Albanian people. Image by Wedded Wonderland.
Albanian weddings are typically very large, averaging 300-500 guests. A small wedding would have 100 guests. Anything smaller would make the families feel shame. Some even borrow money to throw lavish weddings to maintain status and give their children a traditional Albanian wedding, so expect large and lavish wedding party tables!
Guests should dress formally unless otherwise specified. Albanian weddings are often lavish affairs, so it’s better to be overdressed than underdressed.
Wedding guests should come prepared with money to shower on the happy couple. Large bills are typically used for “showing” the bride and groom in money during their first dance, which can be a traditional Albanian dance or a more modern slow dance.
Small bills are used to tip the band, play different wedding games, or slip into the pockets of the happy couple to increase their nest egg. So if you are invited to an Albanian wedding, know that the most coveted gift is cash!
Conclusion
Albanian wedding traditions center on family and the union of two young people in love. The focus is on the celebration rather than the ceremony, making this multi-day party a tradition you wouldn’t want to miss!
If you and your spouse have Albanian heritage or you just feel a connection to this area of the world, remember to respect the cultural traditions if incorporating them into your modern wedding ceremony. Do your research to ensure there’s no conflicts or oversights that can be offensive to a member of that culture.
Your wedding day is meant to be a reflection of you and your spouse, so choose rituals and traditions that are meaningful to you and your family. This will make it a day you’ll never forget!