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| Weddings at Pristava Lepena, Soča Valley |
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Our fondest memories from Slovenia* are of Pristava Lepena: we were married there. This unique chalet hotel nestles snuggly in a fantasy clearing in the Julian Alps, on a pretty plateau just above the Soča River. Being in the Triglav National Park, every effort has been made to make the buildings blend in with the surroundings: the chalets are built in the Trenta style, while if you were to take a few steps away, you wouldn't know it was there. They are laid out amongst the trees and boulders at the back of the property, so that even when it's full, you feel that you're in some way isolated. The surrounding limestone peaks certainly make you feel the special magic of the place.
The owners, Milan and Silvia Dolenc, are fine people and will do everything they can to make your special day happy, comfortable and memorable.
Children are more than welcome - indeed, Pristava Lepena might have been built just for them. There are many activities on-site for them, including a paddock full of friendly goats.
There is also a small pool, a sauna and a whirlpool on site.
* It's not 'from Slovenia' any more - we moved here in 2008. |
As we've said many, many times, Pristava Lepena is a very special place - almost magical. It's far and away our most popular hotel and it has become a favourite holiday destination for many people from all over the world.
It is a therefore a requirement that there is a venue charge for a wedding, which covers full accommodation for two nights minimum, as it's not so nice for 'ordinary' guests to have to live alongside a wedding... and vice versa.
Also, please note that weddings are not available between the middle of June and the middle of September. |
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Your wedding at Pristava Lepena |
Here is the short version - our personal version is below.
- On the eve of the wedding, a 'healthy' meal for all - probably on the terrace under the twinkly stars - and much quaffing involved.
- Next morning - wander down to the dining room for a hearty breakfast: a full Slovenian.
- Bride and groom to start faffing about, while everybody else relaxes, shoot a few arrows, dip in the pool, take a sauna, and slowly dress for the main event.
- Half an hour before the ceremony, everybody congregates outside the dining room, where sparkly and nibbles will be served.
- At the appointed hour, the bride and groom are accompanied by locals in traditional garb and the wedding officials, to head a short procession to the central meadow.
- All are seated under the sun and mountains, to listen to the couple's vows (ours are below) and bear witness to their marriage.
- Rice is thrown (NOT confetti, please), the choir sings, the girlies weep and gush, the men offer congratulations in a manly way, flowers are thrown and gifts given/taken. More sparkly is served.
- All wander back to the terrace for a very, very serious bout of banqueting.
- Speeches, wedding cake, drinks, music, dancing... phew.
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The cuisine and banqueting |
 As you are in the west of Slovenia, but in the Alps, so the cuisine is a hearty mix of Italian and Austrian dishes. A typical wedding banquet will start with a choice of two soups, a cold starter of local cured meats, salamis, olives and cheeses, a mix of main courses (trout, ragout, spit-roasted suckling pig and/or kid), lots of fresh local vegetables and salads, all washed down with some very good wines and followed by various desserts.
If the weather is fine, all of this will be served on the terrace - although the restaurant itself does the job nicely if the sun doesn't have his hat on.
For our wedding, we hired this Russian couple (who we met busking in Ljubljana) to entertain throughout the meal... and they certainly did. And their first CD is now in our collection. We also hired a band to play on the terrace after dinner - they were very seriously good, and we would have had them playing all night... but for the national park curfew. So following that we had a dance party in the basement bar. We were the last ones standing - as it should be.
We will work with you and Milan and Silvia to arrange your banquet and entertainment. |
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For your wedding guests |
 Accommodation
Pristava Lepena itself sleeps up to fifty-two guests. As the guest chalets are separated from the restaurant and terrace by the central meadow and paddock, the living area is always very quiet and peaceful (depending on the rest of your guests, of course). There are six B chalets, which sleep 2 adults, plus two more on a sofabed, three D rooms that sleep two and two C rooms that sleep three, plus the big A1 apartment (6 + 2) and smaller A2 apartment (4 + 2). For an overspill of more adventurous types, there is a fab camping site down beside the river. For the less adventurous but those interested in comparative luxury, the excellent Dobra Vila hotel is just ten minutes away in Bovec. |
Activities
On site there are one or two things that might keep your guests - of any age - quiet:
- Swimming pool - not huge, but great for a splash
- Tennis courts (hard)
- Archery
- Ping-pong
- Sauna
- Whirlpool
- Goats - for saying hello to and petting... if they can be bothered
- Lipizzaner horses
- Ponies for the kids
If that's not enough - you're in the Soča Valley!
- White water rafting
- Canyoning
- Hydrospeed
- Kayaking
- Paragliding
- Trekking
- Fly fishing
- Biking (road and the other one... off-road)
- Trail riding
- OK - so there's no scuba diving
Suffice to say that it is probably the most exhilerating valley in Europe. We can pre-arrange any number of activities or equipment hire - whatever makes you and your guests happy. |
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Our wedding at Pristava Lepena, from memory...
 There will be a 'wedding eve' dinner for you and your guests, probably on the terrace under a sky full of stars, consisting of simple local fare: brook trout, wild boar, salads, a little wine, a little more wine, pancakes (one fabulous thing about Slovenia is that every day is pancake day... apart from pancake day, when they eat doughnuts. Mmmm... doughnuts). Having supped, you will all wander off to your chalets, giggling and singing maybe, but always aware that you are under the eternal gaze of the dark mountains that surround you (hey, it was my wedding and I'm allowed).
Or maybe not, depending on how much you supped.
 Next morning - ah, the morning at Pristava Lepena: the most magical, almost spiritual time of the day, when you look up to the mountains and feel that they're looking up too; you're as big and as small as they are - anyway, next morning, everyone wanders back past the paddock and across the meadow to their breakfast. A Full Slovenian.
Having broken your fast (and your promise to cut down on cholesterol), you'll have a few hours to while away and relax - or the more active amongst you can go and play in the river - but mostly to get togged up in your finery for the greatest show of your life.
 Meet for drinks and canapes down at the restaurant, then a short promenade with the official celebrants back to the central meadow. For this part, you need to tell your friends that they should listen to the translation of the official vows: nothing in England compares... and we've been living by those vows ever since. Although the ceremony takes only about twenty minutes, it will be one of the most moving twenty minutes of your life.
Then it's more drinks, celebrations, and a simply huuuge wedding banquet. By the time you've finished that lot and the speeches and so on, the band will be revving up on the terrace... but only until ten o'clock, as you're in a national park. No matter, as there's a bar with a dance floor under the restaurant: the night is yours. |
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Here is the text from our wedding vows, which the local officials had taken the time and effort to write. Read them and weep - many who were there did. If this doesn't convince you to be married in Slovenia...
To the Bride and Groom,
I think Goethe's thought, "Nothing is more precious than the present day" the most suitable for this solemn moment, for the present day is for you, both precious and unforgettable.
This is the day when you start to weave the most fragile embroidery of your life - matrimony: the binding that will connect you for your whole life. This is the moment when your hearts are open to solemnity, when you feel the love that found and joined you; love that may never cease but grow and ripen from year to year, and become in its maturity yet more comelier.
For it is as beautiful to wake up at dawn and be grateful for a new day of love, as well as it is when you find peace at your midday rest and meditate on the ecstacy of love, or to return home in the evening, with gratitude, to fall asleep with a song of praise on your lips and a prayer for your beloved in your heart.
And yet a happy marriage isn't just about love. A happy marriage is mutual trust and respect; a happy marriage is friendship and understanding; it is devotion and giving.
That's why matrimony is a fragile embroidery: immensely beautiful but also deeply sensitive. A marriage is woven of countless tiny precious moments that have to be cared for. If a marriage lacks jewels such as love, respect and trust, the fragile embroidery may change into a heavy chain that hurts and becomes an unbearable burden for the married couple.
I hope you will walk the more beautiful, and not the more demanding path of love and understanding. This will only come true if you aren't just a wife and husband, but also first and best friends.
If you unselfishly help and trust each other - if you surrender to love. Offer generously and take gratefully from each other. Only thus will you keep your marriage as a precious embroidery; only thus will you be able to overcome difficulties which on this path cannot be avoided, but can always be surmounted.
Keep and cherish your love carefully - for being loved means much more than being rich... or being happy. It means there is always somebody whose shoulder you can rest your head upon.
It is your decision to marry, and today's ceremony also brings with it rights and duties.
Yet these official regulations will only remain as dead words, unless you two inspire them with life.
I hope and wish that you will will do more for each other and mean more to each other than the law imposes upon you.
I will now ask the registrar to read the regulations of the law of marriage:
- The partners are equal in marriage.
- They must respect each other; to trust each other and to help each other.
- They decide freely about the birth of their children, and regarding them, have the same rights and duties.
- Each partner chooses freely his or her profession or work.
- You will decide together about your place of living, and common affairs.
- The partners will pay towards the family's living costs in proportion to their means.
- If a partner has no means of his or her own, and is unavoidably or unable to work, they have the right to be kept by the other partner, inasmuch as the other is able to do so.
Love one another, but make not a bond of love;
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other's cups, but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread, but eat not from one loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of the lute are alone, though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together, yet not too near together;
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow. |
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