What to expect at a Polish Wedding
Polish culture is well known for its lively weddings and if you haven’t been lucky enough to attend one before, you might be wondering what to expect. We have listed a few of them below.
Dancing & Dining
There is ALOT of food! The wedding breakfast followed by a further 3 hot meals, buffets, sweets and more. But fear not! This will be spaced out for the whole night and will allow us to continue having fun without the risk of finishing the party early!
Food
Well, of course! Unlimited table vodka, wine, and beer on every table is a must on every respectful Polish wedding. There will also be other spirits and mixers available. We will also have a barman who will be serving us cocktails for about 5 hours (this is an open bar too, meaning you can get as many as you'd like). This means there is no need to bring a wallet to the party.
Drinks
As Polish tradition goes, the party will go on until 4am! So please make sure you get a good night sleep the day before.
We will have a DJ playing until 4am or longer so get ready for the night of your life! There will be plenty of songs in English as well as some Polish hits that you might be dying to hear.
Also we encourage bringing a comfy pair of shoes to change from the heels once it starts to be unbearable...
Party Time
Hotel Stay
Another tradition in Poland is for guests to have the hotel room on the wedding night paid for. All guests will have their room paid for on the wedding night (Saturday the 12th of October 2024).
In the RSVP you will be asked to advise us how many nights you are staying. You will pay for your room at the end of your stay like most normal hotels and the Saturday night will be deducted.
Rooms are approximately £40pp per night.
Polish culture embraces English music so we would expect approximately 75% of the music to be in English. However, in Poland the DJ often acts as the master of ceremonies and will incorporate traditional Polish dances as well as encouraging some of our cheesy English ones (Macarena anyone?). He will instruct people how to carry out these dances in both English and Polish.
We would certainly encourage all of our guests to get your boogie on!
Music
Don’t worry if you don’t have a dance partner it is very common to change the dancing partners and dance with everybody. It is also compulsory to dance with the bride (no Olga didn’t make that up!)
Equally do not be alarmed if someone asks you to dance, grabs your hand or if the DJ makes you dress up as this is all part of the fun and very traditional in Poland.
We would really appreciate it if you all got involved in the larger group dances and games.
Dancing
Known as Poprawiny (Pop-rah-vee-ny) the second day will start around 3pm and last until around 10pm - it will be a continuation of first day but allows you to recover from the night before. Food and drinks will again be served and hopefully a little more dancing. The second day is more relaxed, so don't feel like you need to dress up for that day.
2nd Day
Toasts
We wanted to keep some of the English traditions at our wedding so you will pleased the hear there will be a few speeches at the wedding breakfast however, this is not traditional in Poland! (We usually just toast a lot of vodka!)
So if you here someone shout ‘na zdrowie’ (nah-zdrov-yeh') and hold up their shot glass, you reply ‘na zdrowie’ and raise your shot glass (or drink).
Sto lat!
“Sto lat” is an expression that translates to “One hundred years”. It is a traditional well-wishing song sung at celebratory events such as birthdays and weddings as you are essentially wishing them a long and prosperous life! We would encourage our non-polish guests to learn the words as it like feature a couple of times.
You can learn how the song goes below: