Innisfree, Alberta

Chris Zorniak of St. Josaphat’s Ukrainian Catholic Church in Innisfree, AB. remembers that there were lots of fun little jokes played at weddings. During his wedding, his groomsmen stole his bride and he had to buy her back with bottles of whiskey. Because he had seen this done at previous weddings, he knew what to expect. He decided to be ready for the “theft” of his bride.  Long before the wedding he started collecting empty bottles of whiskey.  What is more, he was careful not to break the tab around the lid when he would open a bottle. He saved all of the empty bottles and filled them with tea. The colour of the tea was like whiskey and Chris managed to save up enough fake whiskey bottles to be “pay” for his bride. Unfortunately for him, his friends caught on to the trick that he was planning to play and forced him to buy each of them each a bottle of real whiskey to get his bride back.

Many tricks were played during the wedding.  Chris’s cousin filled his car with puffed wheat so that, when he and his bride went to the car to try and leave the wedding party, they could not.  To go anywhere, they had to first empty the car of puffed wheat.

When Chris’s cousin got married, he thought that he could avoid the puffed wheat prank and, to outsmart his friends and relatives, he hid his car in a neighbour’s garage. Ukrainian boys are clever, however, and they found the cousin’s car and covered it in shaving cream. Tricks like that, according to Chris, are a fun and funny part of all weddings in this region.