So after passing the two gates we caravaned to the ruins of an old castle where Robert and Laura encountered their “exes”, a guy and a girl dressed very goofily who lamented their lost love and cried how they had broken their hearts. The two people who did it were hilarious but after they determined they could not break up the new couple they instead led them to the entrance of the ruins where a string was pulled across the entryway. Robert and Laura were each given five ribbons to tie to the string and with each ribbon they had to say something they loved aboutthe other person. Most of the things were sweet and expected but the last comment Robert made was that Laura “had really great breasts”, Jim, Jeremy and I just about died laughing. After all the ribbons were tied they were allowed in where they had to sit and write down “sins they had committed before they met”…Robert finished a few minutes after Laura 😉
After that the photographer took them to take pictures around the ruins, this was also the point when my camera started acting up. Every few shots I would get “Error 99, please turn off the camera and turn it back on or reinstall the battery”. I restart the camera, change the battery, change the memory card, take the lens off and clean the contacts, nothing seems to work, so I’m thinking oh great, my camera is going to die halfway through the wedding. Jeremy googled the error and it’s the default error the camera gives, so not much help. We finally try swapping lenses and that seemed to fix things, so apparently there is something amiss with my general purpose lens, will have to try and fix it when I get back to the States.
Anyway, once photos were done we drove to a nearby grocery store for the next task. There was a large crowd of people who blocked the way into the store, they sang a song to the wedding party and then Dita (the maid of honor) “paid them off” with chocolates as she had done with the other neighbors. Once they got into the store Robert and Laura were each given one Lat and they had to try and buy everything they would need for their first meal together. After much running around the store (and encountering another wedding party doing the same thing) they both succeeded, Robert spending 99 cents and Laura spending 98. Turns out the blockade had actually been for the other wedding party but in the spirit of the day they had stopped our wedding party as well. It was a very fun observation that everyone in the town seems to celebrate with the couple, people on the roads would honk as our caravan (the gold Lincoln in front, all the other cars behind with white ribbons on their antennas) drove past as well.
We then drove to a bridge where Laura and Robert had to each find a large rock that they then tossed into the water. We were near a meadow so the couple went and took pictures while we waited and waved at the passing cars when they honked their congratulations. One if the cars we saw approaching was the caravan from the other wedding, so to return the blockading favor from the grocery store a bunch of the girls stood in the middle of the road and blocked the other couple’s car. They got out and had to say something to each other (it was in Latvian so not sure what they said) and then they “paid off” our blockade with a small bottle of orange vodka (which we later learned was drunk by Robert, Jim and Dita in the limo on the way to the reception).
The next stop was at a crossroads between Riga and Liepaja. The bride and groom were each given a padlock which they locked together and then they took the keys and stood on opposite sides of the highway and tried to flag down a car. Robert flagged down a car first and (with Gunta translating) gave his key to the driver so that his lock could never be unlinked from Laura’s, and after a few minutes laura successfully did the same. Thought that was a very sweet tradition, and later in Liepaja we noticed one of the bridges had a bunch of chains and padlocks left on the railings and I think it is from this same tradition, perhaps with them throwing the keys in the river instead.
At this point the caravan left the limo to head to the reception but according to Jim they went to another bridge where they tossed in some of the flowers they had received from one of the gates and threw in the list of sins they had written earlier to mark a clean slate for their new life together.
Now, the reception….
