The Wedding!

The Wedding!
Sunday, August 02, 2009
3:52 AM

So we lingered around a bit and went downtown as we didn't have to leave for the wedding until 2 in the afternoon. We got ready then walked across the street and grabbed a cab to hit the wedding. Although it should have been obvious from the start this was going to be the cab ride from hell none of us were too concerned that our driver took 10 minutes getting directions from other cab drivers.

Eventually after going in what seemed to be multiple circles we crossed a pair of train tracks on the outskirts of a park and ran into a dead end. The cab driver asked for directions again, then drove out of the park, then asked for directions again. We were told that it was a 5 minute ride from the apartment, but we were now a solid 30 minutes in. The icing on the cake was waiting at an 11 minute red light to make a left turn, it ended up taking almost a full hour but we got there plenty early as Serbian time runs an hour or two late any way.

The forcing of Raijka began early, and watching people arrive was great. I think the headcount was somewhere in the high 200's low 300's and the venue was big. Jele and Aleks came in to great fanfare and then the civil ceremony began. The actual word choices were fairly interesting and fun as they asked if both people had truly thought it through, and which name Jelena would like to take for the official records. After the ceremony everyone that was at the wedding congratulated and took a picture with Jelena and Aleks individually which took as long as one would expect.

The dancing started almost immediately which was great. Everyone gets in a long line facing each other and does the kola (not sure on the spelling) but it’s a really simple dance that for someone with shitty feet like myself, is a lot harder than it seems! The most interesting thing to me was the pacing of the wedding because it was drinking, ceremony, then nonstop eating, drinking, and dancing, til about 2 in the morning. American weddings usually break the 3 apart completely, but having them all together really made for a fun time. Everyone had a ton of fun and I heard from tons of Serbs and even hotel staff that it was the best wedding they had ever attended.