Marta Bortoli

DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPHER

Borsa

This is the story of the wedding season in Borsa, a small town in Maramures (Romania) with around 30,000 habitants. Since the early 1990’s, due to the few working opportunities, the majority of the working population moved abroad, especially to Italy. However, during the last two weeks of August, nearly every Romanian return back home to celebrate a wedding. Even though most have now been living abroad for a good part of their lives, there is still a strong desire to come back to the homeland. In this way they are reclaiming their future taking part in a tradition their fathers and mothers, and grandfathers, and great grandfathers have done so many times before them. In 2019, the civil ceremonies that took place in that two weeks were 70. The number is particularly significant if we take into consideration that there are just 45 ceremonies scheduled for the remaining 50 weeks of the year. The civil ceremony is the only legally binding way of getting married in Romania and it is required before the religious service. The only two celebrants in Borsa are Georgeta and Mirela, which have inherited the job from their mother. People saves money for years to be able to make the wedding as big as possible. Restaurants and venues are booked years in advance and there is a lot of social pression involved in the organisation.