Wedding photographer in Serbia

At a glance

Photographer

Tanja Lukic

Service

Wedding photography across Serbia

Approach

Documentary coverage with natural portraits and a little direction

Regions

Belgrade, Vojvodina, Šumadija, western Serbia and the Danube

This site

Published in Serbian, English and Russian

Inquiries

[email protected]

Where weddings happen in Serbia

Serbia is small enough to cross in a morning and varied enough that the same week can give you a fortress on the Danube, a vineyard on a hillside and a wooden house in the mountains. If you are still choosing, here is what the regions actually look like through a camera.

• Belgrade and the rivers. The fortress, the old streets, the quay at Zemun and the venues along the Sava and the Danube. It is also the easiest place for guests flying in.
• Novi Sad, Fruška Gora and Sremski Karlovci. Petrovaradin Fortress above the Danube, the monasteries and wine roads in the hills behind it, and cellars that make very good evening light.
• Subotica and Palić. Art Nouveau facades in town and a lake with its own architecture a short drive away. The flattest, widest skies in the country.
• Šumadija: Topola, Oplenac and Aranđelovac. Orchards, vineyards and the hill at Oplenac. Green and rolling, and close enough to Belgrade for guests to drive out in the morning.
• Western Serbia: Zlatibor, Tara, Mokra Gora and the Drina. Mountains, pine, wooden villages and the river. The most dramatic landscape in the country and the easiest place to get a portrait that could not have been taken anywhere else.
• The Danube east of Belgrade. Golubac Fortress and the Đerdap gorge, where the river narrows between cliffs. Worth the drive if you want scale.
• Vojvodina villages and nature reserves. Fields, reeds, farm buildings and long horizons. I have photographed personal work in the Zasavica reserve, and that flat quiet landscape suits weddings just as well.

Most of my work in the country starts in the capital. Here is more about photographing a wedding in Belgrade.

Serbian wedding customs worth photographing

No two families keep the same traditions, and plenty of couples keep none of them. But if yours does, they are usually the liveliest photographs of the day, and they are easy to miss if the photographer does not know they are coming. Tell me which of these you are planning.

• The buklija. A decorated wooden flask of rakija carried around when guests are invited, and passed again on the day itself. Almost every hand it touches is worth a frame.
• The barjaktar. The flag-bearer who leads the wedding party, traditionally with an apple fixed to the flag. In some regions the party still shoots at an apple set above the bride’s house before she can be collected.
• Collecting the bride. The groom’s side arrives at the bride’s family home and has to negotiate its way past her brother or a cousin at the door. It is loud, it is staged, and it is genuinely funny.
• Kum and kuma. The witnesses, and in Serbia a lifelong role rather than a job for one afternoon. Worth photographing as carefully as the couple.
• The civil ceremony. In front of a registrar, and the part that makes the marriage legal. Short, formal, and usually held in a municipal hall.
• The Orthodox church service. The crowns, three turns around the table, and the shared cup. Ask your priest what photographers are permitted to do, because it varies from church to church, and pass that on to me.
• The welcome at the threshold. Bread, honey or something sweet offered to the bride when she arrives at the groom’s family home.
• Kolo and trumpets. The circle dance that pulls in guests who swore they were not dancing, and the brass band that usually decides when the night ends.

Questions couples ask