A Czech wedding ceremony often starts late in the morning or in the early afternoon. Invitees gather in front of the chapel and a procession, led by the groom and the bride, then goes inside the chapel. This is different from the custom in many other countries, where the bride always enters at the end. Wedding ceremonies are never very time consuming, and the process followed is very similar to that which is followed in the other states and countries of North America and Europe. Once the ceremony is complete, the groom and bride lead a procession from the church and stay together outside: invitees then queue up and, individually, offer best wishes and congratulations to the content couple, preceded by close members of the family. At the reception site, all invitees wait outside while the groom and bride have to pass 3 ‘tests’. The first test is to decide who is in charge of their new house: the groom and bride are given 2 compact shot glasses. one of which contains water and one which contains an identical-looking dose of slivovice (brandy made from plums). They both then take a glass and drink the contents: the person who drinks the slivovice is pronounced master of the home.
The next test is to judge how efficiently the couple will function together in their new dwelling: a plate gets shattered on the floor, and the groom has to sweep the pieces into a dust-pan which the bride holds—the hard part about this is that people often complicate things by kicking the pieces all over the place. The final test is a strength test: the groom has to slice a chunk of wood using an axe.
When inside, the celebrating begins with food, and this usually continues right through the afternoon and into the evening, normally climaxing with a meal several hours after and dancing and drinking through the night.
