Mafiosi Marriage

Actually, it was a big Balkan wedding that we were at, but somehow this picture of the happy groom and his father with its sort of mafiosi cast (it was taken against the wall in the restaurant where we were having the post wedding celebratory meal) appealed to me even more than the various pictures of the happy couple and their family and friends.

The earlier part of the day was pretty rubbish with some annoying news from elsewhere in the city, but after I'd cycled in to chair a meeting, and cycled home again, things started to look up. The ceremony, the meal and (especially) the party were great fun. We beat a retreat some time soon after midnight, but I suspect the after party is still going on now.

We were amongst the few people at the wedding who didn't speak some variant of the south slav languages (or indeed several variants). Indeed, I shared no language in common with the bridegroom's father apart from my approx 100 words of Serbo-Croatian, and a few words of German, but somehow we managed to communicate quite well, sometimes with the help of some willing interpreters. Somehow the language of pride and joy managed to be completely international.