Instrumental music – an integral element of wedding rites of many East European nations – usually escapes the attention of researchers, who mostly deal with traditional singing. On the contrary, in the works devoted to Ashkenazic culture, instrumental music is a subject of thorough research, while the ritual itself is almost never touched upon. We face a paradoxical situation: regardless of the degree to which the musical material proper has been studied, in none of the two abovementioned cases is considered as one of the constant, obligatory elements of the action. This is connected with the repertoire of wedding musicians and with the attitude of the researchers to it; with the perception of instrumental music as some general, exclusively applied element of entertainment; and with the status of a folk musician.