When Sasha Burodin from Brilliansk, who now serves the Lord as a missionary in Kurskoe
asked if he could do his wedding ceremony/party at ROJ I agreed. However he decided to
do it on April 30th and his fellow worker Maxim Logunkov wanted to share in it with his own
wedding party. Wow, a double wedding sounds good but cannot be the easiest thing to organize.
It was not.
I asked the guys to reconsider about the timing. 'This year we had a hard winter...well pumps
stopped working and there are lots of things still not repaired.' Besides, the weather had not fully
turned warm. But these guys were determined and had already sent invitations...so we went ahead
with it. Here is what happened.
On the 29th the Tatar woman and her nephew who were to do the food preparation arrived
and the food came in shortly afterwards. But we had a flood in the kitchen and nearby toilet.
The sanitary pipes had backed up.
Just so you know I am still not quite understanding how to position photos in this so if the wedding photos appear somewhere below that is why.
It was a funny day. We had worked hard to make it nice...painting the houses a nice wedding white and cleaning up all the assorted pails and building apparatus. We had a drizzle in the morning but the weddings weren't supposed to start until 2 PM so we prayed for dry weather. God answered. Still it was a bit cool for some. The guys had built a temporary shelter for the pilov pot because it cooks on a fire outdoors. The food was getting done. Then about 1 PM the guys started playing the guitar and singing near the bathhouse. About 2 the wedding party came on in dancing to the guitar. They all gathered there in the yard and danced for maybe 30 minutes. Sasha's bride Elena showed up with a faded blue denim jacket over her bridal gown. This was obviously to be a real country wedding. I had dressed up in a suit and tie. Turns out I was overdressed.
I changed and took off the tie at my earliest opportunity. Russian for tie is "Galschtook" I always thought the sound of that word appropriate. It is how my neck feels when I have one on.
Maxim and Svetlana had known each other from childhood. Maxim grew tall. Svetlana did not. And now they are married. They stood apart at the altar...perhaps so their size difference would not be so obvious...didn't help at all. I tool their photo from below knee height on Svetlana's side. It made her seem only a head shorter than Maxim. Best I could do.
Two weddings, two pastors and two sermons. I was reminded of the anecdote.."A pastor dies and goes to heaven. St. Peter shows him to his eternal home. His new home in heaven turned out to be a humble cottage!
Next door though was a magnificent mansion. He asked about his neighbor. Peter said, That belongs to a taxi driver. "I don't get it" said the man of God, "I worked in the Lord's vineyard all my life and this man...well he just drove cars for a living!" Peter said, "When you preached people slept. When he drove people prayed."
We were going to have Edem, the Tatar electrician in to see if he could fix the pump at the center well that evening but when he called I put it off. The weddings were still going on and I was bushed.
asked if he could do his wedding ceremony/party at ROJ I agreed. However he decided to
do it on April 30th and his fellow worker Maxim Logunkov wanted to share in it with his own
wedding party. Wow, a double wedding sounds good but cannot be the easiest thing to organize.
It was not.
I asked the guys to reconsider about the timing. 'This year we had a hard winter...well pumps
stopped working and there are lots of things still not repaired.' Besides, the weather had not fully
turned warm. But these guys were determined and had already sent invitations...so we went ahead
with it. Here is what happened.
On the 29th the Tatar woman and her nephew who were to do the food preparation arrived
and the food came in shortly afterwards. But we had a flood in the kitchen and nearby toilet.
The sanitary pipes had backed up.
Just so you know I am still not quite understanding how to position photos in this so if the wedding photos appear somewhere below that is why.
It was a funny day. We had worked hard to make it nice...painting the houses a nice wedding white and cleaning up all the assorted pails and building apparatus. We had a drizzle in the morning but the weddings weren't supposed to start until 2 PM so we prayed for dry weather. God answered. Still it was a bit cool for some. The guys had built a temporary shelter for the pilov pot because it cooks on a fire outdoors. The food was getting done. Then about 1 PM the guys started playing the guitar and singing near the bathhouse. About 2 the wedding party came on in dancing to the guitar. They all gathered there in the yard and danced for maybe 30 minutes. Sasha's bride Elena showed up with a faded blue denim jacket over her bridal gown. This was obviously to be a real country wedding. I had dressed up in a suit and tie. Turns out I was overdressed.
I changed and took off the tie at my earliest opportunity. Russian for tie is "Galschtook" I always thought the sound of that word appropriate. It is how my neck feels when I have one on.
Maxim and Svetlana had known each other from childhood. Maxim grew tall. Svetlana did not. And now they are married. They stood apart at the altar...perhaps so their size difference would not be so obvious...didn't help at all. I tool their photo from below knee height on Svetlana's side. It made her seem only a head shorter than Maxim. Best I could do.
Two weddings, two pastors and two sermons. I was reminded of the anecdote.."A pastor dies and goes to heaven. St. Peter shows him to his eternal home. His new home in heaven turned out to be a humble cottage!
Next door though was a magnificent mansion. He asked about his neighbor. Peter said, That belongs to a taxi driver. "I don't get it" said the man of God, "I worked in the Lord's vineyard all my life and this man...well he just drove cars for a living!" Peter said, "When you preached people slept. When he drove people prayed."
We were going to have Edem, the Tatar electrician in to see if he could fix the pump at the center well that evening but when he called I put it off. The weddings were still going on and I was bushed.
Loved the pictures. Beautiful. A true country wedding.... much sweeter and memorable than eloping to Tahoe which is what we did.
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