Welcome to a Ukrainian Wedding!

This is my precious Goddaugter Katya from Ukraine. The picture was taken in 2007, at my wedding:

Here is Katya is singing at my wedding. This traditional Ukrainian song was a special gift from Katya to me, her Godmother:

And here is Katya is singing again – at the video from her wedding, in 2013. She is singing only on beginning of the video; rest of the video was a cameraman’s job. Good job, I must say! The guys from the local video studio of Ternopil, West Ukraine (where, actually, was the wedding) did really great on it – they composed this short clip to show to all the guests at the same day, in the end of the wedding. So, please enjoy watching; that’s how modern Ukrainian wedding looks like nowadays:

Now, I am happy to tell you more details about this wonderful wedding, with pictures my husband and I took.

Here is the happy bride:

Happy groom and bride:

Katya’s bridal bouquet – pink peonies and white roses:

Here is the Mom of the bride. Honestly, her dress was the best mother-of-the-bride dress I have ever seen in my life:

The dress was made by local tailor and also design of the dress is created by her – the tailor is very talented lady, as you can see from her work.  

Here are bride and groom being crowned – at the marriage ceremony in Ukrainian Orthodox Church:

And here… here… I have no words, only emotions J Ukrainian wedding table! Something that you can see (and enjoy eating, of course) only at Ukrainian wedding! And these are just appetizers – entries to come!

Speaking of entries, my husband’s and mine favourite one at Katya’s wedding was a beef liver sautéed with pears. Something very different that we never tried before and… amazingly delicious! As well as all of those sweets, desserts and fruits, beautifully served:

Ukrainian custom says that a Godmother has to bake a korovay (special wedding bread, a sweet one) to her Goddaughter’s wedding, or at least to buy the wedding bread for the Goddaughter. Well, I wanted to, but the Godfather of the bride has decided to order the korovay to our Goddaughter, so I came up with the wedding cake. Actually, this is very modern tradition at a Ukrainian wedding – to have both, korovay and a wedding cake. I had no idea what design of the korovay is going to be, but I stuck to my favourite style in cake design – a traditional Ukrainian style, with traditional Ukrainian flowers, which are poppies, cornflowers and chamomiles, and with colours of Ukrainian flag, which are yellow and blue, and, of course, for the cake topping I picked up newlyweds in traditional Ukrainian clothes. Nobody knew how the cake I have ordered will look like, so I was pleasantly surprised when I found out, already at the wedding, that design of the Godfather’s wedding bread is perfect match with the cake! The same poppies, cornflowers and chamomiles!

So, here are both, the wedding bread (on the left) and the wedding cake (on the right) from Katya’s Godparents:

Another great surprise at my Goddaughter’s wedding was the musicians – the Veseli Halychany band from Ternopil. The same musicians that played at Ron’s and my wedding!

It was so nice to find it that idea to have these musicians at her wedding came up to Katya when she was attending our wedding. Actually, it was Katya’s dream to have Veseli Halychany at her wedding. Why dream, it is because the Veseli Halychany band are not just musicians – they all professional musicians, one of the best folk band of the western Ukraine, so to get them to the wedding is not that simple, they are quite busy, touring in Ukraine and abroad. Oh, and interesting fact! Back then, in 2007, when Ron and I got married, Katya has not even met her groom yet J, but! She already knew which musicians will play at her wedding – well, the dream came true!

So, here they are, the Veseli Halychany musicians, entertaining guests at my Goddaughter’s wedding:

And here the musicians are playing at the ceremony of sharing the wedding bread. Normally this ceremony – sharing of the wedding bread – is being performed at the end of Ukrainian wedding. First two Starostas (Matchmakers) have to dance with korovays (forgot to mention that typical Ukrainian wedding nowadays has to have two korovays wedding breads – one from the groom’s side, one from the bride’s side):

Then, after the dance, the Starostas are sharing wedding breads. Top of the breads come to bride and groom, middle part, sliced – to all the guests at the wedding, and finally, bottoms of the breads traditionally belong to musicians. Here is more about Ukrainian wedding bread korovay traditions, meanwhile – enjoy the video of the korovays sharing at my Goddaughter’s wedding:

Yes, my Goddaughter’s wedding it was a day to remember! So happy for newlyweds! Also, I hope, you got an idea from this story how Ukrainian weddings look like and feel like. So if you are travelling in western part of Ukraine and you are happened to be invited to a wedding, go for it! You can experience of these feelings and emotions yourself, and it might be a highlight of your trip.

Famous musical instruments maker from West Ukraine would not trade his mountain life for any attraction of a big city

Visit to Mykhailo Tafiychyk, 75 years old musician and musical instrument maker (on the picture above), was one of highlights of our family trip to Carpathian Mountains, Ukraine.

Mykhailo is known in Ukraine and Ukrainian communities outside of Ukraine – he is making musical instruments for many Ukrainian musicians and bands, also for musicians abroad.

Mykhailo lives in the town of Bukovets, Verknovyna district, Ivano-Frankivs’k oblast’, which is located in the western part of Ukraine, in picturesque Carpathian Mountains.

The mountain views on the road to Mykhailo’s home are just breathtaking, but it cost us lots of effort to get there. The roads deep in the mountains were mix of rocks and mud, beside, the day of our visit was very rainy, so we were not even sure our rented car is going to make there. Well, we parked the vehicle before the really bad part of the road and walked rest of the way up. But our impressions and emotions from the visit of Mykhailo Tafiychyk were worth to get there.

Mykhailo and his wife live a typical lifestyle of Ukrainian highlanders. They raise cattle, grow vegetables, take care about firewood for winter and enjoy visits of their kids and grandkids (Tafiychyks gave birth to 8 children).

Mykhailo used to work as a blacksmith, but from young age he loved to play music – he is self-taught musician, like majority of folk musicians in Carpathian Mountains. One day Mykhailo tried to carve a pipe from a piece of wood and he succeeds! Since then, making musical instruments, simple ones and complicated ones, like violin, bagpipe, hurdy gurdy, dulcimer, became big Tafiychyk’s passion and every day’s occupation. Back in time, when internet was not invented yet, Mykhailo’s talent and skills as amazing instrument maker were known among amateur and professional Ukrainian musicians by word-of-mouth. Mykhailo’s musical talent became popular after he founded the Tafichyks family folk music band – him and his sons – and they started to appear at the festivals, concerts, on local radio, television and in newspapers. They even recorded one CD.

Now, when Mykhailo is retired, he still makes musical instruments and plays in his family band. Few times in his life he had offers to move to a big city, to be professional musician in orchestras and bands, but he never accepted it. Mykhailo said he wouldn’t trade his simple life in the mountains for any attractions of the city.

What Mykhailo is concerned about is that traditional art of making musical instruments in Carpathians is dying out, so he tries very hard to keep it alive. He passed some of his musical instruments making skills to one of his sons – now his son is specializing in making dulcimers.

In our visit to Mykhailo, he gave us a nice concert, playing all instruments he made – hurdy gurdy, bagpipe, dulcimer, violins. We have recorded pieces from that concert on a video, but all those instruments sound much better when to listen to it LIVE. The sound is nice and clean and fresh; the hurdy gurdy sounds like whole orchestra; and violin, especially one piece back one… Oh my! It is sound so much better than a regular one! My husband and I even wanted to order a similar one piece back violin – despite of that nobody in our family is musician, we wanted to keep a violin like this one as a family treasure. We didn’t order though, but… well, we still thinking about it, especially looking at this picture – yes, this is one piece back violin Tafiychyk made:

And this is hurdy gurdy he made and carved in traditional hutsul’s style (hutsuls (plural) or hutsul (singular) are ethnic names of Ukrainian highlanders):

And here are few videos from our visit to Mykhailo Tafiychyk – he is playing bagpipe, hurdy gurdy and one piece back violin. We really enjoyed the performance! Definitely, Bukovets and Tafiychyk’s place is one of the must-see destinations in Ukrainian Carpathians!