Here Comes the Bride…

So my host sister got married this past Saturday…the one word I would use to describe it is LOCO (crazy for you non-Spanish speakers)!

Up until Thursday, the house was abnormally calm but I came home for lunch on Thursday and it was out of control…there were people everywhere, food everywhere, pots and pans everywhere, flowers everywhere, it was crazy! So that night was all about organizations and then Friday morning at 3 am my host mom and sister hopped a bus for Guatemala City to buy even more flowers! That afternoon while I was shedding pork by hand I asked why they left so early and they told me because you have to get there early during September because everyone is getting married and they wanted the best flowers! I guess every bride no matter where you are want the best!

Like I said before I was the human shredder for the pork that was going into the soap for the civil ceremony/rehearsal dinner…I always tend to become a human something here, I have been the human fan more than once! My family was cooking for ONLY a hundred people on Friday night, that was nothing, the grooms family cooked for 800 people on Saturday night! They set up a tent outside the reception to cook it all! So Friday night was interesting because it was the civil ceremony, which should be a great occasion, but it was weird because no one was smiling, everyone looked somber, like it was a funeral! I was not sure what was going on but I still smiled for all the pictures, even though I am probably the only one!

Saturday morning I woke up at 6 a.m. and my house was FULL of people! They were beginning to make flower arrangements, cooking, decorating stuff…they were doing anything you could think of that needed to be done for a wedding and they were doing it all themselves…I could not believe my eyes!

I need to explain here that when I first moved in they were handing out invitations and I asked how many she was sending out…between 80 and 100…seems normal right…wrong! Eighty to a hundred invitations turned into over 800 people being invited to the wedding. And in the words of most Guatemalans, “How nice that you want a small wedding!” I am a small wedding is 800 people, normally weddings are between 1200-1500 people, could you imagine…absolutely not! During this whole process I had to explain why I am the same age as Miriam, my host sister, and I was not married. I also was asked how many people I wanted at my wedding…when I responded with 80 or so, they were like oh so the same size…I had to explain that, no, I only wanted 80 PEOPLE not invites!

The wedding was like anything other Catholic wedding, except that they never kissed at the end, they just started taking pictures! The reception was decorated like any other reception that I have ever been to but the strange thing was there was no dancing and no booze (we all know that rarely happens in the states)! I could not believe there was no dancing, I mean my family is really fun and outgoing and there was just nothing! We just sat there and ate and talked…in Spanish!