Museum Collection
A Wedding Wreath
Traditionally a wedding was thoroughly prepared on the Upper Don. In the villages and stanitsas of the Vyoshenskiy and Elan districts wedding dresses were made according to the family circumstances and to their taste.
The bride was adorned with a wreath and white veil. Paper flowers for the wreath were dipped into white paraffin to be white and firm. The people called them waxen wreaths.
According to one of the Don Cossack wedding customs, when the wedding party was half over, the bride was led away by the matchmaker, relatives and friends to another room. The wedding wreath and veil being taken off from the girl’s head, the plaits untwined, the hair was twisted in a bun with a woman’s cap put on the head, and the girl was shown to the guests. It meant, that the girl had become a married woman and from that time on she would always hide her hair under the cap.
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