More than three decades after their wedding at a small church in Bucharest, a Romanian couple finally got to take a look at photos of their ceremony, all thanks to a Newton man.

For years, the photos had sat in an album on a shelf in Matt Hills’ Newton Centre home.

That changed with a conversation last weekend. One of his children had mentioned how Croatia was a vacationing hot spot. Hills had been to Croatia, and he had the photos to prove it.

After graduating from Brandeis University in 1981, Hills, along with three college buddies, traveled across Europe. Croatia, then part of Yugoslavia, was among their stops. So was Romania. Hills dug out photos from the trip. Among the images were 23 photos he took of a wedding in Bucharest.

Hills, a former member of the Newton School Committee, was outside a church in July 1981 when he and his three friends happened upon the wedding. They were invited to watch. Hills, dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, was the only one in the church with a camera.

He can’t recall if he used a Canon or a Nikon. He doesn’t own the camera anymore. He doesn’t recall how much he moved around the church, although the photos have some different angles, he said.

He does remember someone asking if he would mind taking photos of the nuptials. He obliged.

The couple gave him their address so he could send them the photos. But, as Hill said, “We were 21-year-old kids, so we lost it.’’

Hills, now a 58-year-old father of four who works at a private equity and venture capital firm, said that he tried to track down the wedding party through Romanian officials in New York during the 1980s, to no avail. Then he forgot about the photos.

Until last Saturday. After he talked about never being able to find the bride and groom, his family suggested posting the photos online. Social media being what it is, someone in Romania might recognize the couple.

Hills doesn’t have Facebook, so he forwarded the images to his sister, Susan Hills Goldman, who lives in New Jersey. She posted the photos on New Year’s Day, along with an explanation of how her brother took the wedding photos, but was never able to track down the couple. In the post, she tagged Stavropoleus Church in Bucharest, where the wedding took place.

Hills Goldman was then inundated with friend requests, comments, and messages from Romanians. As of Friday night, her original post about the wedding photos was shared more than 1,300 times. She woke up Friday to messages from people who said they were the son and niece of the couple, Zinica and Liviu Breazu. The Breazus, after almost 37 years, had found wedding photos they had never seen before. Zinica Breazu found out about the photos on Friday, her birthday.

“It’s crazy . . . could it have gotten any better than that?’’ asked Hills Goldman.

Danny McDonald can be reached at daniel.mcdonald @globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @Danny__McDonald.