How a girl in a Russian village "embroidered herself a husband" and a mother-in-law embroidered a daughter-in-law: two female "commissions" at one wedding

In a traditional Russian wedding, special symbolism was present not only in the bride's dress. The groom's costume was also a kind of message, encrypted in thread patterns and accessories. And these messages were created by two of his closest women: his mother and his bride. This was discussed at the III All-Russian Wedding Festival by costume designer, Honoured Artist of the Russian Federation, two-time Golden Mask award winner, and collector Viktoria Sevryukova.

According to her, in a Russian village, a girl from the age of 12, as soon as she learned to embroider, would begin creating a wedding shirt for her future husband. She did not yet know who he would be, but she already visualised her prince through needlework — and she did so not by chance. Each pattern was a kind of commission to the Universe, expressing what the girl wanted her betrothed to be.

"She did not yet understand who it would be, but on this shirt she embroidered her prince and all her ideas about him. For example, buttercups and little flowers — if she wanted a romantic relationship, for her husband to sing her serenades and carry her in his arms. Acorns — so that he would be wealthy. Grapes — if she dreamt of passionate love, for everything to be ablaze. Moreover, as a rule, they embroidered just one of these motifs: it seems the Universe was waiting for a precise order. And then the groom would appear at the wedding wearing this shirt," said Viktoria Sevryukova.

But the story did not end there. Viktoria Sevryukova explained that the second woman — the groom's mother — also prepared her own "commission." She embroidered a protective belt for her son, weaving into the patterns her vision of what the future daughter-in-law should be like — whom, by the way, she had also never met.

"Just imagine: two female energies dictated the men's clothing, and the dreams of two women converged during the wedding," emphasised the artist.

This tradition, according to Viktoria Sevryukova, reminds us of the main thing: a wedding is not just a meeting of two people, but a merging of two families, who for centuries preserved and passed on to new generations their traditions, characters, crafts, and other unique traits. And even today, in the era of ready-made outfits and mass fashion, this deep meaning remains with us in the choice of colour, cut, and other details that we — consciously or intuitively — embed in our look for one of the most important days of our lives.