To say that Hutsul wedding is grandiose is to say nothing. A Hutsul family will spend their savings of several years to make sure that the wedding of their offspring is just as good – or better – than that of the neighbor. Well-off Hutsul families make weddings with up to several hundred guests; poorer families who cannot really afford it hold grandiose weddings by going into debt.
A traditional Hutsul wedding is happening in two places at once: at the house of the groom and the house of the bride. Each wedding has its guests and its musicians and last up to three days. The bride and groom meet on the way to church but soon after the marriage ceremony everyone goes to his or her own wedding. Only in the morning of the second day of the wedding the groom, with his best men, will go to the house of his future wife, buy her from her brothers or relatives and bring her to his own house.
Every part of the Hutsul wedding requires the presence of musicians and especially the presence of the fiddler; the fiddle plays not only a musical role but a ritual one as well. It used to be that traditional Hutsul music bands would play the whole wedding. In the 1970’s, however, young people started demanding modern bands with electrical guitars and synthesizers.
Today, traditional Hutsul musicians play during the ritual parts of the wedding, accompany the young couple to church, greet the wedding guests, entertain the guests at the tables. The dances are played mostly by modern bands while traditional musicians will play several tunes during the breaks. Many bands try to fulfill both requirements by hiring a traditional fiddler for the ritual moments while the band will play modern instruments the rest of the time.
Because of such developments, young people tend to learn the keyboards or at least a bayan - at the expense of the fiddle or tsymbaly; the result is that it is becoming ever more difficult to find an authentic Hutsul band.
A Hutsul wedding in Shepit, part 1