[bambax]

I went to a wedding in Poland once. Oh my. They drink vodka like water (or wine), and it's hard to tell if they're drunk or simply happy.

After each course people stand up and dance, and then return to yet another bowl of soup of potatoes and bread, and a large glass of vodka.

My wife was sitting next to a very big guy who told jokes in a language that was a mix of polish/bad German/worse English. He underscored each punchline with a real punch that he would throw into my wife's arm, with his elbow. She weights something like 90 pounds, and he must have been over 200 pounds (of muscle). She would almost fly off her chair every time.

[zalew]

A traditional picture of a Polish wedding is a huge village party lasting for two days with huge families, everybody is totally hammered, there's the creepy drunk uncle, and for sure there must be at least one fight after which nobody remembers what was it about. Nowadays, especially in big cities, it has somehow faded away. Probably because weddings are so expensive and people came to their senses as they have their contemporary problems, also it's not viewed as cool to trash a wedding, so maybe people tend to control themselves more on such occasions. People get really hammered on casual home parties among friends and clubbing in town, not on weddings.

It's something sometimes hard to explain to Americans, but in Poland, Russia, and most of Eastern Europe in general, vodka is a big deal. People don't care about drinking beer or wine (although they are very popular), but there is a certain culture and ruleset about drinking vodka.

[ajuc]

Very few people get really drunk on weddings, even thought you can easily drink over half a litre of wódka throught the whole night.

I think that's because people eat fat stuff and soups with oil all the time (it stops alcohol from being absorbed quickly. It's important to eat the first fat meal before drinking), and they dance often (so the metabolism is faster).

EDIT: but yeah, in Russia they drink even more. Also the social protocols around drinking differs a little (tall glasses vs shot glasses for example).

[alexkus]

Not just Poland. I've been to an identical wedding in Slovakia (I can still remember the burn from the slivovica).