Thursday, September 19, 2013

It's all about the money...

First of all I want to explode one stereotype about Poland - it is not cheap.

At least what comes to weddings. Seems like here weddings are a big business, or at least it is a good business. Maybe I could have expected that, seeing all the wedding dress shops that are in every corner (at least my dress was not too expensive..). But I did not. I thought we will have luxurious wedding with third of the price that would be in Finland apparently I think I'm in Romania :P

After the small setback we've been comparing possible wedding venues and their prices. Huhhuh, I say! And I hölmö thought that food is cheaper here. Or at least service. Well, that's not how it looks like. Or maybe they smelled that we are foreigners, we have money, and made special offers for us. :P

So what is this outrageous price then? For the menu the normal price per person seems to be something between 40 and 50 euros. It includes service, plates and utensils, non-alcoholic drinks + toast, ridiculous amount of food and sometimes wedding cake. I checked few examples for catering prices in Helsinki, just to compare, after I heard from several people that these prices are too high. And it looks like you can get the same package in Helsinki with the same price. That couldn't be true right?

Ok, I have to say that the amount of food that seems to be the norm in here is huge. And probably there is more staff included in the price also than in Finland. But still. I'm wondering how can average Polish couple afford any of this. If food for the wedding is already half of the yearly salary? Do they get some government money for weddings, or what?

Other thing that has caused us me some grey hair is the food:

  • Does it need to be so Polish? Don't get me wrong, I like Polish food, but it's not very festive for me, it's like makaronilaatikko and karjalanpaisti in wedding (ok these are probably traditional Finnish wedding dishes :P)
  • Can somebody seriously eat so much? Apparently wedding is the new Christmas in Poland.
First they serve three or four course dinner, then opens the buffet (Swedish table as the call it here) and after that the dessert buffet. Yes, dessert buffet! Not only wedding cake, nooo, but like 10 other cakes too. Crazy. And so that we would not starve after this humble amount of food there will also be night food. And night-night food.

One thing is for sure, alcohol is cheaper here. (I shouldn't say for sure. Maybe there will be some special tax for wedding wodka.) Not very surprisingly wedding in Poland means that everyone gets wasted for some people in Finland too, so of course it is natural to have never ending wodka service for the guests. However, we decided not to have open bar, and this seems to be shocking for Polish. :D

So if I did not have a culture shock before, then no worries here it comes! ;)

This post might include slight overreacting.

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