The last wedding I went to was nearly 10 years ago when my mom and step-dad walked down the “aisle” in our back yard. Luckily in my awkward glory there was no dancing or young people mingling for that matter, just a simple, lovely dinner in my living room. Everyone has been telling me about how fun weddings are but I am still at that age where my friends haven’t yet decided to take the leap into wedded matrimony. Well this past weekend I went to my first “grown up” Argentine wedding. Actually, I didn’t go to the wedding or the dinner, in fact I didn’t even show up until 2AM for the “celebration”. You see in an Argentine wedding there are many parts. First there is the civil ceremony where the couple gets married in the court and there is a small ceremony attended by friends and family followed by a fiesta, of course. Then the following weekend or a few weeks later is the big deal wedding. The wedding starts in the church at 8 pm followed by a dinner which starts at around 11ish and then the festivities that last until daylight. Here they don’t have bridesmaids and groomsmen nor do they spend thousands on an engagement ring (very high chance it would be cut off your finger by a thief).
My Argentine friend invited me to his good friends’ wedding (the third part). I showed up at 2am, just as dinner was being finished. I guess what happens is that different friends are invited to different parts due to cost so at around 2am tons of young people came rolling into the banquet hall. Initially it was very reminiscent of a middle school dance, boys were on one side and girls on the other. I spent a good part of the night dancing with my friend’s girlfriends as the guys put the married couple on their shoulders and tossed them like bean bags into the air. At around 3:30am the music quieted down and the lights came on so the newlyweds could cut their cake. Then we all moved into another room outside lined with tables filled with every variety of cake and dessert imaginable, I call it heaven. Nearly everything had some form of dulce de leche…yumm. Then the music resumed and the party continued only to be interrupted again at around 4am to hand out colorful hats, Jack Sparrow hats (hair and all) along with other pirate garb, glow in the dark bracelets, and goofy costumes similar to those provided at Bar Mitzvahs. My favorite memory of the night was seeing the bride’s parents sitting atop someone’s shoulders with the father wearing a white beard and a king's crown and her mother decked out with huge carnival beads. I could never ever ever imagine my parents staying up and partying that late. So alas, at 6:30 am we bid everyone goodbye and I mean everyone. We went around to practically every person at the party and kissed them goodbye…such good manners. And that was my first real wedding, kinda.
