A wedding.... Spanish Style

Outside church

I survived my first spanish wedding! One of the reasons for coming back early to Spain was to go to Pablo's friend's wedding so I could see one before we got married. Good thing I went because they do it a tad different here in Asturias. The big picture is the same but different in the way you plan and present.

First, ceremony was in a church in Santa Cruz where Pablo lived as a child. It was in the same church his parents were married and Pablo and his sister were baptized so it was fun to go see it. We waited outside the church and everyone was talking and then the groom showed up and greeted people. Then the bride showed up and we are like or time to go in the church but only half the people went in before the bride. The rest followed her in. Pablo said that isn't normal. The priest wasn't even at the alter when the bride walked down the asile but he finally showed up. We think he was drunk or something because he couldn't find passages in his book and ad-libed and then he didn't even know the names of the bride and groom. It was bizare. And then half the guests kept talking during the whole thing and to top it off....they didn't even kiss!

After the very interesting mass/ceremony we got on buses and headed to the reception. It was in this very nice place. We were greeted with appetizers, very fancy, and wine and sidra for cocktail hour. It was outside/inside setup and they had bagpipe players, typical asturian playing music.

Traditional Asturian Bagpipe players

Appetizers

Cocktail hour

We arrived to the reception around 7:30 and at 9:30 they opened the doors to the dinning room and we found our table and dinner began. I was warned NUMEROUS times not to eat or drink a lot during cocktail hour because I would be eating a lot for dinner. I quickly found out that it was not a joke. At each place setting was a menu for dinner. It was 5 courses plus a sorbet in between the fish and meat course, coffee or tea, champagne, and liquors. The menu included seafood platter, fish soup, white fish, orange sorbet, lamb, two desserts- cake and ice cream. I ate almost all of it but it was a little ridiculous the amount of food. Basically you got 3 main courses plus soup, sorbets and desserts. But EVERYONE comes for the food. I quickly found out as I am now in search for a reception site that if you don't serve a lot of food and bad quality food everyone will complain and not be happy. It is a lot of pressure! And it doesn't really fit into my original ideas of a small, fun, low-key wedding.

First Course...Seafood platter

Third Course Fish (second course was a fish soup, 4th was lamb)

All the girls received these gifts boys received cigars and whiskey

5th Course- cake and ice cream

After a 4 hour dinner and barely being able to move out of my chair because I ate so much, the dancing started. Very typical...DJ and drunk people dancing. At weddings I tend to always turn into a crazy person and tend to feel embarrassed the next day...this was no different. I was dedicated a song and they played Grease and I sang to it in the microphone...I didn't know the words but that is the song they play for Americans...not my first choice. All the songs were in Spanish so at the end I just wanted one song in english and got 3 by the end of the night. Grease, I will survive and Let's Dance by Lady Gaga. But I can't complain it was fun.

We finally ended the night around 5:30 am and got on the bus and headed for home.

The Bride Marta

The Groom Fredo