Shrovetide and girls wooing
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In villages, ?Shrovetide? meant the current period, which lasts from the winter holidays to the beginning of the Lent or the Easter. In times gone by, in the villages of Transylvania, most weddings were organized during this period. First of all, the girls and the boys used to meet and get acquainted in gatherings, which started at the beginning of the Christmas Fast and continued through the Shrovetide, up to the spring season. Boys used to come here every night and each of them got his eyes on the most beautiful or most hard-working girl. If the girl liked him back, then the wooing and the wedding followed.
Hora of the village
Another way for young people to bond was hora (traditional circle dance) or the dance, which took place on Christmas, New Year?s Eve, for Epiphany, or in every Sunday during the Shrovetide. It was here where girls used to see if the boys were well behaved. In their turn, the boys were paying attention if the girls were insolent, if they were smart and what their condition was.
In the County of Brasov, this custom is preserved in Rupea area, Tara Fagarasului and even in Tara Barsei region. The tradition refers to wooing the bride and to events preceding the wedding performed by the groom when proposing to the bride.
The dowry deed
?This custom has two aspects: when the boy?s parents go to ask for the bride?s hand, bargaining, when concluding the couple?s engagement and when the boy?s parents draft the Dowry Deed and plan the wedding and the second aspect, when the actual proposal follows, when the churchwarden - a lad, proposes to the bride on behalf of the groom. The suite consists of the array of the bride and groom, the groom being considered an emperor, as he is the most important character of the moment?, declared the ethnic folklorist Ioan Pumnea.
The bride?s song
When the groom?s suite accompanied by the godparents and by the groom?s array goes to pick up the bride, he says that ?he found a flower that he uproots only to take it back to his garden?. The groom is usually tricked and is given an ?old? bride, a women that he has to pay until the real bride is handed over to him. Before the bride leaves to church, where the religious ceremony for joining the two lovers is performed, the farewell song called ?Ia-ţi mireasă ziua bună? is sang in the bride?s house.