Wedding without glamor

I had to shoot weddings more than once, but more often by order, and I did not feel free in creative terms. It was necessary to please the client so that the photographs turned out "beautifully, like their", "like everyone else."

But again August has come again - the season of weddings. And this time I was lucky enough to get to an ordinary rural wedding. Not formal, not limited by some stereotypes and it is not clear to whom the invented protocol.


I arrived in the village of Koltyugino, 30 kilometers from Tara, the regional center of the Omsk region, when preparations were prepared for a quick holiday at the courtyard and in the houses of the bride and groom.


The house of the bride of Svetlana was easy to recognize by posters and balloons at the gates and a crowd of curious villagers of all ages. Weddings in the northern Omsk villages are now rare, young people are leaving for cities, so for Koltyugino the wedding of Svetlana and Pavel became a universal rural holiday. I am sure about him, people will recall for a long time.


At first I watched the people hurried to the house of the bride or groom, depending on who is relatives to whom.


As rural people sincerely believe, they put on their best and fashionable outfits. However, almost no one pays such close attention to who and in what came to the celebration in the village as weddings in the city.


For my visit and my lens, almost no one pays attention. The bride’s sisters help mother with the preparation of snacks for the festive table and Svetlana herself - to put on white outfits unusual for everyday life. One of the men is in a hurry to accelerate this pre-holiday noise and bustle-to swing the glass or two on the go, the good that the father of the groom caught up with an almost whole flask of moonshine.

In both houses, women prepare and remember their weddings, men smoke and give the groom to Pasha the "wise" tips. At the same time in the open air, right in the courtyard of the groom's house, the table is set. Not that in a city where weddings are held in canteens, a cafe where it is dark and stuffy and, as they say, nowhere to spit.


The bride and groom go to the wedding house, to the regional registry office.


There is nothing interesting there is a routine procedure, but I noticed that many guests, not to mention parents, cried.

On the way back, approaching the next bridge on the highway before turning on a country road, the groom transferred his bride in his arms. Such a tradition! And there were three bridges on this way home.


I drove forward to the wedding car and on the way I saw shepherds, already ready for the next "haul". There is no cellular communications in the village, so no one warned men when the newlyweds would go. As it turned out from the conversation, they were guarded by the side of the groom and the bride for more than one hour.


Already in the village of Road, a wedding motorcade with young people is blocked by fellow villagers. Today on legally, you can take a ransom. Bargaining is appropriate. And it passes very lively and naturally.


First of all, festing at a rural wedding surprises with its sincerity.


Tamada is a friend, cooks - friends of parents, a harmonist - a relative, everyone knows each other.

The feast goes by a natural turn, without a given script, and as the soul and heart are ordered, and, probably, hops, which relaxes people to a state when the soul becomes wide open.


Competitions are held, in high esteem - swearing ditties, and the guys decided to ride a new mother -in -law on a cart.






There are no paper medals or honorary titles at a rural wedding that tired me so much at other weddings. And they dance here not at the invitation of the host, but when they want.


At first I was surprised at the organization of the wedding, despite the fact that it was actually a gravity. Like a river - flows, loopes, bends the hill, goes from whirlpool to the mold ...

Tamada is usually difficult to cope with such a noisy campaign. But soon I noticed: all "positions" are distributed by themselves. Who is on the collective farm (now - a cooperative) an accountant, he collects money at the wedding.


Especially dashingly dancing at the wedding under the "apple" and swearing ditties.


The rural wedding can not be compared in glamor with the city, but it really, as it sings in the song, "sang and danced, and the wings carried this wedding to the far ..."

I saw happy people. Free and liberated. They walk just like that, because they like to walk so much. Only strong people can afford to be yourself, and not portray someone and for someone. And these rural men and women, guys and girls are not simpler, as it might seem at first glance. They are real.

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