Paying in onions and potatoes for wedding outfits

A wedding ceremony is under way in a Russian church. The young couple will soon be pronounced man and wife. They already put down their signatures and exchanged the rings. All of a sudden, a person shows up and gives two bricks to the bride and her groom. Is it some kind of a joke or what? No, it is a new way of fundraising. These days the couples wed in a church of the town of Dimitrovgrad are encouraged to contribute to the restoration of the church of the Savior and Transfiguration by buying two bricks. The names of sponsors will be carved on every brick bought during the nuptials.

The staff at the local registry office came up with that uncommon idea. The newlyweds and their relatives paid for nearly a hundred bricks during the first day of the new procedure. One brick costs 5 rubles.

A nice wedding ceremony entails costly wedding dresses and other fancy things money can buy. But sometimes money is tight to mention. Now wedding dresses and stuff are available for hire to low-income residents of some villages in the Krasnodar regions. The couples can pay in "kind" for the hire of matrimonial attire i.e. in onions, potatoes, and fruit grown in their garden plots. The wedding outfit of a groom costs 80 kilos of onions a day while a gorgeous weeding dress costs 100 kilos of potatoes.

Those who prefer nontraditional means of transportation on a wedding day had better follow suit of a newlywed couple in the city of Sebastopol, Ukraine. Having completed the ceremony at the registry office, the couple and the guests boarded a trolley car that was decorated for the occasion. Vehicles blew the horns as they passed by the unusual wedding trolley car in the streets of the city. According to city transportation authority, any resident of Sebastopol can hire a trolley car for a special occasion. The rental is a mere 50 grivens per hour.

Some time ago an unusual wedding ceremony involving a Russian cosmonaut got into the headlines all over the world. The Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko (awarded the title of Hero of Russia) and Ekaterina Dmitriev, a U.S. citizen, tied the knot during the satellite communication session. At the time of the ceremony the groom was on board the spacecraft traveling high above the bride. Unfortunately, the groom's relatives could not attend the ceremony because it was held behind closed doors in NASA Center. The wedding party took place later after Mr. Malenchenko had returned to Earth. Many a guest had a great time in one of the restaurants in Texas. They had the opportunity to try some of the traditional dishes of Russian cuisine including borsch, pickled herring, and vodka.