Bride ‘market’ in Bulgaria

Scores of young Roma women were recently paraded before potential suitors at a Bulgarian ‘bride market’ where poor families are given the chance to arrange financially beneficial marriages for their children.Here the potential brides are provocatively dressed, donning gobs of mascara and wearing flashy jewellery, towering heels and mini-skirts. And surrounding them are young men whose family hope to find them a wife at a good cost.They are among the most poverty-stricken people in a deeply impoverished region and seek to forge mutually beneficial unions that will help them weather Bulgaria’s economic downturn.The ‘bride market’ — held four times a year on various religious holidays during the spring and summer — is a chance for the Roma’s nomadic tinkers to meet and not only catch up on gossip, but also play matchmaker for their adolescent sons and daughters. The cost of a bride — between 5,000 and 10,000 lev (£2,200 to £4,300) — has dropped in recent years as jobs have dried up. And wedding festivities are much more modest with cash so tight.