A Bosnian Wedding

Yesterday, Braxton went to his first wedding. It was great fun to see Fatima and Otto tie the knot Bosnian style. I normally just post 2-3 photos of each event but I just had to include all of these photos since many of you know our friends through bridal showers, baby showers, etc.

After the wedding, I was standing in line to hug the bride and groom and the groom's sister Armina yelled, "Diane--don't stand in line! Come up here and let me hold Braxton!" I felt honored to "jump the line" past 30 other people to hang out with the family. Armina was wearing her red bridesmaid dress while she was holding Braxton and the whole time I was thinking "Lord--please don't let Braxton puke all over her bridesmaid dress!!!" I was SO thankful that Braxton was happy and slobber-free while the girls were holding him.

The first photo is the beautiful bride Fatima. On the right--is the bride's sister Armina holding Brax.

This next photo on the left is the mother-of-the-bride, my good friend Azra. It's not the greatest photo of her because she was talking while I took it. On the right is a photo of the father-of-the-bride and grandma-of-the-bride. Grandma flew all the way from Bosnia to attend the wedding (and boy are her arms tired!)

This next photo is of the bride's brother Arko (doesn't he look adorable in his tux) and the right photo is of the bride's cousin Jemka holding Braxton.

And just a quick story about a "lost in translation" moment....while talking to Arko he said to me, "finger or head?" I had no idea what he was talking about and he repeated himself, "finger or head?" He stared at me waiting for my response, until I reluctantly said "finger". He smiled and made a scissors motion with his fingers and said, "good, I get to take one of Braxton's fingers home with me!" I looked at him confused (knowing that he would never hurt Braxton and thinking that I must have heard his little Bosnian accent wrong) and said, "what?" He clarified his response by looking at me very seriously and saying, "I am going to cut off one of Braxton's fingers". By this time I was completely confused so I looked at his sister Armina and said, "what is he talking about?" She laughed and said, "it's a dumb Bosnian joke that people say to babies. Either you get to 'take their head home' or 'take one of their fingers home'". She said, "basically, its like the American joke when adults pinch a baby's nose and say 'I got your nose!'" Then she said, "Don't worry Diane, I know it doesn't sound funny. A lot of American jokes don't make sense either once you translate them." ....thinking back about this confusing and bizarre conversation with Arko makes me laugh!