‘Bride-Napping’ in Romania Is Exactly the Sort of Caprice American Weddings Are Missing
LatestA Romanian tradition called “bride-napping” has been able to flourish in recent years, because apparently no one in Romania has seen or gives credence to Jawbreaker. It happens like this: a bride is abducted in a fit of ribaldry by her drunkest friends. She is ferried to a secure location (the most popular being Romania’s Arch of Triumph), where her abductors negotiate the terms of her release with the groom. Usually, those terms involve handing over a whole shopping cart full of booze or making a public declaration of love. The newlyweds are then happily reunited with a great story to regale their progeny with, over and over, telling and retelling it as if it’s a whole new story, prefacing it every single time with a totally rhetorical question: “Have I ever told you about the time your Aunt Andrea and her friends kidnapped me during my wedding?”