A month ago in Albany, NY, I was the wedding disc jockey for a younger Lithuanian couple, proud of their roots. They were good people, so I can understand why their guests wanted to shower them with money, but something at this wedding was different. These cash gifts were not in card-form at the gift table, but rather people showering the dance floor …with coins!
As the first dance came to an end, the wedding party rushed to pour tons of silver dollars, quarters, and smaller coins, all around the dance floor corners. When the newlyweds finally made their exit, the guests frantically moved in to pick up the coins to fill a tall glass vase on the head table. Eventually, a lucky guest held the specially marked coin in the air and demanded his dance with the bride.
I since learned that the Lithuanian love coin wedding tradition originated from a 1500’s Lithuanian town legend that would later resurface as a fad in the 1800’s. Here is what our Disc Jockeys at TheDJservice.com could find about the original story that transformed into the wedding tradition we have today:
THE LITHUANIAN LOVE COIN LEGEND: In a small Lithuanian village in the 1500’s, a young man did not have enough money to buy his girlfriend an engagement ring. With the country involved in one of the many Muscovite–Lithuanian Wars, most men didn’t have much money and had to be creative. What this man chose to do to profess his undying love, was to provide his bride-to-be with a personalized gift. He took a coin and spent many hours cleaning it, sanding it, and overall, turning it into a piece of beautiful art. When he finished, one side now had a beautiful dove and both of their initials. When he presented this treasure to his lady and proposed, she of course said “yes.” But the ceremony was, unfortunately, not to happen anytime soon. Soon after the proposal, the man was drafted off to war and would not able to first marry his true love for another ten years.
The Woman Waits for her Husband-To-Be To Return
In the meantime, she waited. As a symbol of their love, she treasured the coin and kissed it every night before bed, awaiting his return. One night, however, thieves broke into her house and stole her very few valuables and also put the coin in a bag. The girl awoke the next morning and was heartbroken.
After ten years, the man finally returned to his home town as a hero. His bride-to-be had waited eagerly and was very elated with his return, but very sad to confess the loss of the coin he had made for her. The man comforted her and decided to waste no more time. They planned their wedding for the weekend. The next day, the entire village passed word of the news. Come the weekend, the whole town came to what was supposed to be a small wedding ceremony to show thanks to the man who fought so bravely for them for many years.
The guests felt badly, however, when no rings were exchanged during the ceremony. They realized that the couple had no money. They learned that the wife had recently been robbed and decided to do something about it. Between the ceremony and the reception, the villagers ran home. When they returned to the reception hall, they brought with them lots of great food and presents to show thanks to their war hero.
Husband & Wife Dance their First Dance as Guests Pour Coins Around Them.
As tradition, the couple entered the reception hall last. They drank wine and ate salt and bread to symbolize joy, tears, and work; the three main elements of a life together. Then they were surprised with an even better feast from the thankful guests. During dinner, word got out that the bride’s belongings and their precious love coin had been stolen less than a year before the groom’s return. When the first dance began, the villagers emptied their pockets and purses in merriment onto the floor, as gifts to start the home the new husband and wife.
As the guests collected the money for the couple in a flower vase, a curious thing happened. The original love coin was, in fact, found. It had been re-circulated and passed around the village and ended up in one of the guest’s pockets! The coin was happily returned to the couple who danced with it’s finder in celebration. As the story goes, they lived happily ever after.
THE LITHUANIAN LOVE COIN WEDDING TRADITION LIVES ON: Today, some Lithuanians re-live this beautiful love story, in memory of this couple and the good people of the village. The guests bring loads of silver dollars, half dollars and quarters to weddings and throw them all over the dance floor. One of the coins is marked with bride and groom’s initials. At the end of the first dance, the wedding party collect all of the coins for the newly weds and fill a clear vase, and the lucky person who finds the “love coin” gets a special dance immediately with either the bride or groom for their find.
LOVE COINS – If you are considering doing this tradition at your reception, you can make your very own Lithuanian love coin, buy a hobo nickel, or you can try to find a vintage one with their initials on it. There are many vintage ones on ebay and at: Love Tokens: Engraved Coins.
Grandmaster Flash; one of the pioneers of Beat Juggling.
Before sampling machines and software on laptops that let you digitally loop a sequence on a track, DJ’s used to do something called “Beat Juggling.”
Beat juggling is the act of playing section of a song on one turntable, and at the precise moment when the beat ends, cueing it up on a duplicate record, on another turntable. This was often done to extend a part of a song that a DJ particularly liked; perhaps one that really got people dancing. Beat Juggling was also used in order to create unique compositions, using multiple turntables and one or more mixers.
It is said that beat juggling with a small section of a beat is looped using two copies of the same record was first done by Kool DJ Herc at a disco club in 1973. The idea caught on and later was refined by other early hip hop DJs like Grand Wizard Theodore (arguably, the first DJ to scratch out loud in 1977), Grandmaster Flash, and Afrika Bambaataa.
This meant that DJ’s couldn’t fire up an iPod, or open a folder of thousands of tracks stored on a laptop, it meant they had to physically carry bulky records to their events, and quite often have on hand TWO of many of the same albums!
“Scratching” came about by mistake, as the DJ was cueing up the next beat and enjoyed the sound that it made. This eventually became the artform that it is in the hip-hop world today.
Afrika Bambaataa. Also known as “The Godfather of Hip Hop” – produced one of the first major breakdance tracks called, Planet Rock. He invented turntable techniques that eventually spread throughout the world. The first song with beat juggling and scratching to hit the mainstream charts was by mixed by Grand Mixer DST performing on the turntables in Herbie Hancock’s dance track, “Rockit.” As a result, scratching and turntablism was first exposed to the masses.
Here is an idea… How about a wedding fit for a King? An Elvis-themed wedding can be as elegant and fancy, or as fun and crazy as you would like it to be.
Elvis had many faces over his life. He was a lady killer, rockstar, country man, Las Vegas staple, and clean cut man of class, depending on when you saw him over his career. Also, Elvis’ Blue Hawaiin period can allow for a more laid back pacific feel.
So what can you do?
First and foremost, pick out the Elvis look you want most and dress your bridesmaids and groomsmen accordingly. If you still want some traditional tuxedoed look for your wedding ceremony and really only want the Elvis theme for the reception, the perfect way to incorporate the theme subtley is by dressing only the goormsmen of the wedding party’s feat in Blue Suede Shoes. Then choose a matching shade of blue for the bridesmaids gowns!
But if you really want to go all out, how about ushers who are all dressed as Elvis impersonators for the big day? And how about a ballad for the wedding march and walk the aisle to Elvis singing “Can’t Help Falling In Love With You”.
Once you hit the reception, anything goes.
Peanutbutter and banana sandwich horsduerves are a must for a conversation piece. Also, add some 50’s sunglasses on every table and some hawaiin leighs.
