So the day has come. Our wedding. She actually spent the night here, with her mom making just a pro forma attempt to frown. The guests started coming from the early morning, mostly relatives from Zajač and Vršac. The most obnoxious was the postman, who brought the congratulary telegrams. Dad made a mistake of offering him a shot of minor brandy ("minor" as in "not yet 18, only 12 years old"). After third shot we managed to maneuver him out somehow, fearing the guy may fall of his moped somewhere.
Who showed up? First, the full set of relatives from Vršac (one uncle, who was to be our best man, with wife and Aleksandar; his niece without parents, aunt Milica with husband, Teja with husband and daughters plus tetka Dara). From Zajač, tetka with uncle Staja and Anica and Danica; auntie Janja with husband (don't remember seeing kids, they are not on pictures), and dad's three cousins from maternal side, with wives. From Zeta's side, Stef and Helga and an old aunt came from Germany, then , tanti and of course Arpi with his Ružica. From our company, only Veca, Sneca i Tejka but she's kind of kin. We didn't feel like inviting any of the gangs we had because this was dad's event, we didn't even want to have a wedding. Of neighbors, Đuđa with husband and daughter (son was already working in Belgrade), Ivan Bakračev and his mom, Sejini (them two; son visited in the morning) and a few more, perhaps a total of five houses.
The official photographer for the whole event was Baja. He borrowed a pretty automatic Minolta from someone at DC-99 and thought it would just work and he could be the entertainer. The latter worked swimmingly, the photos were often blurry, specially those he shot without flash in the city hall and later during dinner.
Special guests: someone who was our kum, whom we never saw before or after. Traditionally, their house and grandpa's houses had this relationship, and dad was dead set to keep the tradition. Well it's his show - we know what we got for the bargain, Zeta gets to add her maiden surname to mine. Which later turned the best database testing tool - all three parts being long, if the fields won't accept her full name, it's badly designed.
The other special guest was Paja, who was tasked with tying my necktie (got the photo!). He also turned out to be a great entertainer, just the right guy to break all those misconceptions about mathematicians.
There were more special guests at the city hall - those guys from Nigeria, whom I taught photography during winter, sent a delegation. Relatives from all sides were nudging each others in the ribs, pointing out the three black guys and trying to guess whose relatives were they.
The wedding itself went as any other here - the long procession of the cars going to the city hall, making a kind of a mess while grabbing parking places, then walking in a kind of organized fashion to the door of the matricular office. Then the registrar read the relevant articles of the marriage law (too bad, only a couple of years later that was replaced with very poetic and equally serious words of Duško Radović, who says the same thing in a much nicer and more humane way), we signed, and took pictures at the inner staircase of the city hall. Bad idea, light was low and Baja wouldn't use the flash. Mom waved the marriage papers as if it were some prize.
Then we went to kaštel, had dinner. The real fun came after the official part was over and the time we paid the band expired. Ah, the band - we didn't want any folkoid music (which was rampant for the last eighteen years already and just got worse) but real folk music. Couldn't avoid accordion - wanted just strings - but at least had a real double bass and a tambour. That was around 22, I think, and then it was "we'll play for as long as we're paid", and then the neighbors started paying and really having fun. By midnight, IIRC, it all cleared.
And that's it, we're married.
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One summer evening in 2021 we reminisced over the presents we got at the wedding. From kum, some italian pottery, finely done thin porcelain, so impractical and silly that it was absolutely unusable except to be displayed on a high shelf as an attempt at sculpture. It managed to stay for quite a long time, was never used (perhaps the vase was, a couple of times), and then some pieces were stolen while we were away. One vessel remained, there's a shot of a kitten sleeping in it from 2010, and then even that perished. Which doesn't matter, either, we didn't see the kum for 40+ years, never remembered his name. All I know is that, when dad and I visited him to announce the event, he lived in some serpentine street, which would resemble a question mark on the map.
From Teja and uncle we got a pendulum clock, which lasted seven good years, and is still hanging on the wall in our kitchen in the old house. That's not a second rate position, we live in the kitchen.
From tetka Dara we got the big set of flatware, twelve of everything. The best spoons and forks I ever had, perfectly laying in the hand, even the knives are good, the coffee spoons too (not to be confused with teaspoons, which are larger), we're still using it and it still looks like new. While we were in the US, I was somehow disappointed that our standard so fell, we couldn't have decent flatware, it was all so fake ancient and badly designed, going for the looks and not the mouth, or cheap and ugly chinese junk. We never found anything so elegant. It's possible that someone brought it to her (her son lives in Switzerland), who'd know that now. Anyway, this is the thing that's spent most time with us and we still use it.
Paja brought us a two piece set - a vase and ashtray from thick red glass. While neither saw much use, they were always nearby and at hand when needed. Even now I could find them in a minute.