A traditional Tatar wedding is the most important event in every family, the traditions and rites of which are rooted in the depths of centuries. Among the traditions, there are three options for creating a new family: leaving the bride out of the house without receiving a parental blessing, a wedding by matchmaking, as well as the abduction of a girl who did not give consent to the ceremony of marriage.
Matchmaking : As a rule, a Tatar wedding, the traditions of which have not changed for decades, was held after the matchmaking. Moreover, the bride was usually chosen not by the groom himself, but by his parents, who then sent matchmakers to the girl's family in order to ask her father for consent to marriage. If the bride’s parents agreed to the marriage, then they discussed the main “details” of the future marriage, the size of the ransom, and then they began the necessary preparations for the ceremony.
A modern Tatar wedding, the redemption of the bride in which is still an integral part of the procedure, differs from the ancient ceremonies only in the features of gifts. In the old days, the bride's parents received money, all kinds of animals, luxurious carpets, and now an apartment or a car is often used as kalym. At a dinner devoted to matchmaking, the young are usually not present, and instead of the bride and groom at the banquet, their fathers are the main culprits of the celebration. At the end of the ceremony, a sherbet is brought to the groom’s family, which indicates that the bride’s parents accepted the dummy and quite agree with its size.
Religious rite : Each Tatar wedding begins with the “nikah” rite, a religious ceremony during which special conditions of marriage are recorded in the mullah's registration book. Such conditions include all the gifts handed over to the bride and her parents, as well as the size of the kalym and the products necessary for holding a wedding dinner. Of particular importance in such cases was always the amount of money that the future husband, if he wanted to divorce, was obliged to pay his wife.
After the financial conditions of the marriage were fully described in the registration book, the mullah sought the consent of the young people to enter into a marriage, and since the bride and groom were not present at the ceremony, the fathers were responsible for them. At this time, the bride was usually either in another room of the building or behind an opaque curtain, and two witnesses went to her to verify her consent to marry. When the mullah heard an affirmative answer from the witnesses, he set to reading various excerpts from the Qur'an that were dedicated to marriage.
Wedding celebration : The classic Tatar wedding began with celebrations in the bride's house for two to three days, with the girl's parents inviting and treating the visiting matchmakers. When the guests were leaving, the bride's family began to carefully prepare for the meeting of the groom, prepared a beautiful room for the young couple, which was decorated with the most beautiful things from the bride’s dowry. The bride and groom lived in such a room a few days after the wedding ceremony, and after visiting the bathhouse, the groom had to change into new clothes made by his young wife, and then gave her various valuable gifts.
During the bride’s first visit to the bride’s house, the young man had to bring various gifts, as well as pay a ransom for the opportunity to enter the courtyard, and pay for the right to enter his bride’s room. He also presented gifts to people who drowned the bath and made a soft wedding bed, gave small gifts to each of the village children who had specially entered the house of the bride's parents. Therefore, going to his own wedding, the young man usually took with him a large suitcase, filled to the brim with gifts and all kinds of treats.