This is me, Ietti Leibovici, with my husband, Iosef Leibovici, at the wedding, also holding the bride's bouquet.
My husband's name was Iosef Leibovici. He was born in Botosani in 1924. We met at a youth party. People organized balls, reunions. We met through a third party and we liked each other. The balls were very nice, with Wienese waltzes - the waltzes of Johann Strauss -, tangos, with 'damen waltz' - meaning a waltz like all others, but it was the women who invited the men to dance.
Our wedding took place in 1954 and, since it was during communism, and the system was very strict about religions, we had the religious ceremony performed - we had the civil ceremony performed in advance - among family members, at uncle Buium and my aunt's place. That's where the religious ceremony was performed. That's how it happened to be, because there had to be not too many people present. There were a few relatives of my husband's, there probably weren't more than 12 persons at the ceremony. I didn't wear a bridal gown, I had a light-colored dress instead, cream-colored, rather. I didn't have a veil, but you must wear something to cover your head when you are under the chuppah. And my husband was wearing a suit. And they performed the religious ceremony, with a chuppah, a rabbi, everything was in Hebrew. The groom, the bride, the sponsors, the parents, if present, walk around the chuppah. And that's when a drinking glass is broken - it is the groom who has to break the glass, to show his strength. He tosses it, and then kicks it with his foot. Afterwards, the kettubah is written; it is written in Hebrew on parchment.
And we had already rented a place where we lived, and we prepared a feast there, and we went home after the religious ceremony, we had guests, and it was very nice, very special. We had many guests, I believe we were 70 in total. We had 2 large rooms, a hallway, and the neighbors across the hall, some extraordinary people, offered us 2 of their rooms. The music played in the hallway. There was an accordion player, a jazz player - a sort of drum -, a guitar player. They played music from the 1950's. The waltz, the tango, the foxtrot, these were fashionable in those days… and other dances as well, the name of which I have to think hard in order to remember. And we laid tables in the rooms our neighbor gave us to use, in a corner, in yet another corner, and we had a table filled with all sorts of meat specialties, sausages, steaks, cookies, cakes, wines, with… Everyone would enter, help themselves to some food. And the music played in the hallway, people danced in this other room, and it was beautiful. It was, how should I say, more special.
