The Slavic Smile

This was pretty funny and also a little sad.  I recently got married in the Republic of Macedonia and at my civil ceremony, my sister ended up taking a lot of the pictures.  A little background:  She and I are both American and my husband and his family are Macedonians. But my sister and I are a little different than my fellow slavic family members; we smile when we take pictures.  I'm already familiar with the mug shot look, given when I pull out the camera; and have become quite accustomed to it.  However, my sister didn't realize what was going on.  She was snapping away, and couldn't get a picture with everyone smiling.  After a few pictures, she decided she would take action.  She starts telling my mother-in-law, who doesn't speak English, to smile over and over.  I didn't notice she was doing this, or I probably would have burst out laughing.  Then when that failed, she started telling my father-in-law to smile.  But picture after picture, no one smiled, except for me.  After a few more attempts and motioning with her hands, she gave up and let it go.  Later when we got home she said to me, "Man I couldn't get Matza or Zike to smile in one picture. I even tried to show them how to smile."  I burst out laughing and said, "They were smiling." Btw, my sister's awesome  Canon camera took this picture.