Trystan Photography: An Intimate Portrait.

Kadian and Drago planned a very unique wedding with a very formal ceremony, but during our couple photos after the ceremony, everyone changed into Hawaiian shirts for a luau style reception. Kadian and Drago, along with the rest of the wedding party remained in their formal attire, but they later sneaked away to the house and changed into the traditional Serbian folk wedding clothing, and surprised everyone when they walked out under the cover of receding dusk, entered the tent, and began dancing.

This was like a match to a fuse on a firework. As the began to dance, the whole place went nuts. Everybody was up and dancing to traditional Serbian folk music, spinning arm and arm, yelling an hollering in pure joy with arms thrusting triumphantly into the air. It was honestly the best reception event I’ve ever witnessed.

In fact, the entire night was a dream wedding, that is until the groomsmen came around with this traditional Serbian spirit called “Stomaklija”, which is passed about in this huge, ornately carved wooden flask. I was doing just fine until this point, but the moment I took a shot from this deceptively beautiful flask, it’s nitroglycerin-esque contents fumed into my belly (it’s actually pretty good if you like vaguely fruit flavored gasoline) and it was over from that point on. “Party-time” Trig emerged, and before I knew it I was singing Guns ‘n Roses karaoke, having a dance off to “Bringin’ the Sexy back” against Drago’s sister (somehow, I lost…).

The night literally ended with a “bang” when my Uncle Kevin announced it was time for our private fireworks show. I didn’t know you could have serious, large scale fireworks in Minnesota (you probably can’t), and it was truly the neatest thing we’ve taken photographs of this year. We had Kadian and Drago stand out by the bank of my uncle’s pond and we just cranked down the shutter speed and used our remote Nikon SB-800′s to light them as they celebrated and enjoyed what was a jaw dropping display of pyrotechnics. I have no idea how much professional fireworks cost, but I think we probably witnessed what would be a regular person’s in-state college tuition get blown up into beautiful cascading flecks of fire!

It was the most fun I’ve ever had at a wedding, or a party anywhere, period. The fact that it was with my family made it even more meaningful, and I can’t thank Kadian and Drago enough for inviting us and giving us the chance to photograph that wonderful evening.

It was truly, a great 4th of July.

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