In life there come certain times known as “lightbulb” moments. Its when the light switches on in your head and you can see something so clearly that right away, it all makes perfect sense.
Preparing for Dean & Dijiana wedding day as exciting yet nerve wracking, at this stage we'd never seen even what a Serbian wedding entailed, so we were going in pretty much blinded. Still our enthusiasm to get the best photo/ video footage propelled us forwards. A Serbian wedding is great tradition with a lot of interesting and symbolic “rules”. The Groom and bride spend the day before the wedding partying separately with their own friends. Groom’s guests come early in the morning at groom’s house usually around 9am. The bride’s guests come at the same time at bride’s house. Car from every guest has to have colourful towel or blanket tied onto the car’s mirrors. The bride and groom’s car, the main and the first car in the column of all guests’ cars, is all in flowers and decorations.
Helping Dean prepare for his big day was his three other Groomsmen all done up in black and white suits and a white bow tie to complete a look of sophistication.
Also, groom’s brother carries the Serbian flag. After serving a little food and usually a lot of Rakija, they form a column of cars with the bride and groom’s car in the front, and they then go to purchase the bride. All the way towards bride’s house cars from column don’t respect traffic rules and honk all the time.
When they arrive at bride’s home, the groom has to use the weapon and try to shoot the apple from great distance to show that he has become a man, and that he deserves a bride. Also, hitting the apple is permission for the guests to come into the yard or house. If he misses the guests join him with their weapons until they blow up the apple. When they come into the house, the bride is locked in the room and groom’s the brother goes to negotiate with the bride’s brother about the price.
When groom’s brother pays for bride he walks out with her to the yard. In the yard guests can enjoy Serbian food, a lot of Rakija, and guests usually dance to a Serbian national dance called “Kolo”, then they all go to groom’s house. There the bride has to throw a colander full of wheat and candies on the roof of the house, and if it stays on the roof; the bride is going to stay. Wheat in the colander symbolises fertility of the bride, and candies symbolise a sweet, beautiful life.
Bride also has to throw little child called “Nakonjce” in the air and catch him a few times to show that she is strong enough to give birth and raise children. After getting Dijiana ready with her three bridesmaids in tow wearing strapless light blue gowns, they all waited for one of Dean's groomsmen to deliver Dijiana a shoe before venturing off to the Serbian Orthodox Church in Arundel where everyone had to stand.
The priest started the ceremony with the preamble, and continues with putting crowns on both Dean and Dijiana's heads, and ties their hands together with a piece of cloth which symbolise unity in their marriage. In one part of the ceremony they go around the priest, three times around table which symbolises the Holy Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and the godfathers followed them with candles in their hands. When priest pronounced them as man and wife if bride step onto groom foot, she is going be in charge for everything, she is going to be the head of house and vice verse, and then the groom kisses the bride.
We were then fortunate enough to be able to view the best man throwing a bag of coins out onto the ground for all of the children to run in grab, this was done in a sign of good will, and running the bad spirits aways from this holly union of all days. The traditional Serbian music and dancing started to take place outside of the church's doors where dean and Dijiana shared their first kiss.
We flash forward to the photos sections for both photography and videography, and we were simply amazed by the footage we managed to get from this weddings, we couldn't have been happier with the bridal party, as they were full of jokes and smiles. Our next location was Emerald Lakes at the french quarter.
As we get to the reception where it was held at the Mecure Gold Coast Resort, it was time to get into action as the night quickly sped up with a wild party brewing. With lot of food, luxurious cakes and home made cookies. Drinks like great Serbian plum homemade Rakija called “Sljivovica”. Also, there is lots of dancing and Kolos. We party until dawn; sometimes we party all night and all day tomorrow.
