The Desperate Daughter:

Wedding guests and nosy townsfolk eagerly awaited to witness the bride price ritual. They stood in the mansion’s courtyard and on the street side of the long white wall craning their necks and cupping their ears to see and hear what the groom’s family was willing to pay for such a contrary, and as rumor has it, sickly over the hill twenty-two year-old bride. Some guessed and even wagered the bride’s worth in terms of the the breed and number of animals she would fetch.
They overheard the bride’s cousin Toma cautioning the groom’s brother Vlada, the dever, “Remember, if you give a measly price, your embarrassment will be great!”
Vlada, responded, “We’ll give the couple a fat and very docile milch cow.”
Toma laughed, doubling over. “My beautiful cousin is worth more than a cow!”
With a pained expression on his face, Vlada shouted, “You strike a hard bargain, but I’ll add a young horse!”
“That’s all?” Toma wailed. “Our family is embarrassed and outraged. As you must be aware, the more you give, the longer they’ll stay married. At this rate, the prospect of their wedded bliss is only two weeks. We reject the cow and the horse!”
Vlada scratched his head and moaned, “Before we’re all late for the ceremony, please tell me what will satisfy you!”
Toma unrolled a half meter long list from his pocket and began, “We’ll accept the money for the latest and best model of the treadle Singer sewing machine with three drawers on each side!”
“Done!” Vlada exclaimed and wiped his forehead, looking relieved.
Toma quickly added, “And a modern bedroom set!”
“That, too?” The dever jumped as if mugged but grudgingly agreed to add the furniture and then complained that after Draga was paid for, there’d be no money left for him and his brother Ljuba to pay the bride price for their future wives.
Toma ignored the sad comment and continued, “In addition to the above, you’ll still be getting a bargain if you throw in the price of a beautifully engraved, cylindrical, brass coffee grinder and—”
“But, but—” Vlada tried to protest.
He was interrupted by Toma’s powerful voice. “You aren’t willing to pay more for that fair bride? She’s worth much more than to what you’ve agreed! In addition to your modest offer, we won’t accept anything less than the price of a hand-painted, wooden grinder with a drawer at its base and iron machinery—”
“Agreed!” Vlada shouted. “Now let’s go to the cathedral!”
Disregarding him, Toma quickly rattled off the rest of his list. “And a brass coffee roaster with a carved, long wooden handle that can double as a bed warmer, four copper long-handled Turkish coffee pots of different sizes, a meat grinder with six attachments and small, medium and large hollow irons as well as a wood-burning kitchen stove!”
Vlada hesitated and was seen consulting with his mama, who nodded affirmatively. At that point, the bridegroom slipped out of the crowd and into the kitchen.
A few minutes later, Zlata chased him out of the house wielding a rolling pin in one hand and a long-handled wooden spoon in the other. She was heard screaming, “You have some nerve trying to sneak in and kidnap the bride. Can’t have her till your family pays for her honestly and properly! Holding on to the bridegroom’s cap his cousins had decorated, the groom weaved between guests with armed Zlata gaining in on him.
At that point, Vlada shouted, “Please don’t hurt the bridegroom! We agree to your terms!” There was a hush as he handed Toma a large canvas sack. Everyone heard the sound of many jingling coins.
Toma peered into the moneybag, pulled out a handful of gold ducats, and announced, “That’s more like it and will have to do!”
As the guests cheered and some paid up their bets, Toma motioned to his Aunt Svetlana to bring out Draga, her oldest daughter. The shoeless bride descended the steps into the courtyard as everyone oohed and clapped because of her great beauty, wedding dress, and virginal wreath. The weird headpiece was decorated with hanging bones and beads all around the thorny rose stems that were intended to stave off the evil beings who wished to do her harm.
Her mama guided her toward Vlada and stepped back. He slipped on the ring finger of her left hand a gold ring that was studded with two diamonds on top of a golden knot. According to Serbian custom, the fourth finger of her right hand was reserved for the wedding band. The groom stood nearby, grinning proudly at Draga while adjusting his silly cap.
Vlada explained that his gift was a family heirloom that belonged to his late maternal grandma, the dear Baka Jela. The dever told the bride, “May your and my brother’s hearts be as intertwined as the gold strands of the knot on this ring! May your love remain as clear, bright, and true as its two diamonds on top of the knot!”
He also placed on her feet the white shoes she had made to order and for which her future husband had insisted on reimbursing her father. As was the custom, he had also paid for her dress and veil.
In turn, she draped diagonally across Vlada’s chest a long white embroidered and fringed linen towel. Then she tied it on his left side below his waist. He and his younger brother Ljuba, the flag bearer, also received new shirts from her. The united families and guests shouted, “To three hundred years of friendship and love between the two families! To a long life and many male children! To the newlyweds’ health, wealth, and happiness!”
Vlada’s mama, Katarina, embraced her soon-to-be daughter-in-law and placed an antique gold bracelet around the young woman’s right wrist. It matched the heavy gold chains her fiancé had given Draga at their engagement that now graced her beautiful long neck and ample bosom.