COSTA RICAN WEDDING

By: Julia and Tom
Quepos, Costa Rica

Tom-

Though I'm generally an optimist, weddings seem to me to be rife with opportunity for things to go wrong. Something will get forgotten or lost, the skies will open up and it will poor rain, crucial people will show up late or not at all. Therefore, in many ways I should consider myself fortunate that I've already gotten all of these things out of the way at the first wedding Julia and I attended on our "Weddings and Whitewater" mission.

The event started with me frantically searching through my bag for my pants about an hour before the wedding was to start. I grew more and more desperate until finally realizing that I had never gotten my jeans back from the laundry my host mother did in Coopesilensio. (Before you get up in arms about me wearing jeans to a wedding, dear reader, know that roughly half the people in attendance wore jeans and a polo shirt). So now, I have no pants -for both the wedding and for the rest of my trip around the world. Feel free to suggest a name for my spin-off blog, something along the lines of "Around with world...with no pants."

As Julia and I walked to the wedding, the rain started pouring down. We were being moody with each other about the lost pants and were arguing about the directions to the chapel. When we arrived at the chapel, the bride and her parents were lined up outside preparing to walk down the isle. The mother of the bride caught our eyes and flashed us a big smile, waving us into the church with enthusiasm. No words were exchanged; we didn't even have time to offer our reasons as to why we wanted to attend a perfect stranger's wedding. It didn't seem to matter, and we took our seats just as the Bride's mother and father gave her away to the Groom.

I took the camera out and proceeded to snap a photo. The camera blinked "Please insert memory card." Shit! I'd forgotten to put back the memory card after I downloaded some pictures earlier in the day. Julia glared at me. She was clearly not impressed with my performance at our first big W & W event. I slipped out the back of the chapel and jogged across town to the hotel in the pouring rain, grabbed the memory card and jogged back. No one seemed to notice me leaving or returning because a third of the wedding attendees were on "Tico time" and showed up between 10 and 30 minutes late for the wedding, .

But I've still got blond hair, I'm wearing a pair of olive green J. Crew cargo shorts, and I've got an expensive looking camera which contrasted sharply with everyone else's cheap point-and-shoots. Clearly, I don't blend. This was not the height of comfort for me. And when I'm uncomfortable, my Spanish goes from pretty decent to REALLY bad. Everyone always says (myself included) that they speak their second language the best when they've been drinking because they relax and open up. This was the opposite of that. After the wedding the mother of the bride again approached us and I stumbled through an explanation of what Julia and I were doing there. She was very enthusiastic to have us there and insisted that we come to the reception also. It was at a nice resort about 10 minutes out of town. When we arrived there, she introduced us to the bride and groom. Everyone saw our nice camera and somehow I became the de-facto photographer for the rest of the evening. The bride and groom posed for me. People approached me and asked me to take certain shots of the cake or of couples dancing. By the end of the evening, I actually felt relaxed enough to strike up a few conversations with people and my Spanish flowed naturally. But that may have just been the champagne talking.

Julia-

  Tom is in charge of the facts, but I am a fan of the details.  The wedding of David and Neysmi was filled with little details that speak volumes about which traditions are important during a Costa Rican wedding.

  The ceremony, a traditional Catholic wedding mass, was similar to one you might attend in the states.  The first difference one would notice is the casual dress of the attendees.  The only person in a suit and tie was the groom and several guests wore jeans and a casual top.  The Bride, however, was decked out in a strapless a-line with a corset-style backing and crystal beading.  She complimented her dress with huge crystal-encrusted earrings and a mid-length veil that was tucked into her bun.  She carried a bouquet of real flowers- ferns, white carnations, red roses and oriental lilies.  These flowers also adorned the pews and entry ways.

  I asked Tom to help translate the mass for me, but he insisted that he, "never understood what they were saying even when they spoke English."   I enjoy religious ceremonies best when I can't understand what they're saying anyway.   The formal mass didn't discourage people from getting up to take pictures throughout the ceremony, greeting other guests and breast feeding.  There was also a good deal of clapping and hugging throughout the 45 minute service.

The reception was held at an up-scale resort outside Quepos.  I was surprised to see tall vases of calla lilies  adorn each table - callas are one of the most expensive flowers to include in an American wedding.  They looked beautiful.  There was also a sprinkling of red rose petals on the table to complete the color palate for the wedding (red, white and black). 

  A champagne toast was given to welcome the guests.  The first dance came next, a sweeping Spanish ballad.  The smoke machine and strobe lights lent a distinctive Latin flare to the moment.

  The dinner of rice with meat and a papya salsa was served buffet style on square plates.  The dancing began promptly after dinner, with a DJ spinning Latin dance beats as the night grew darker.  Couples began dancing, followed by families with small toddlers in tow.  Soon the dance floor was crowded.  I noticed it was during this time that the cake was cut without fanfare and distributed personally by the Bride.  She seemed to spend at least a half an hour overseeing the cake-cutting process.  

  We left soon after, certain we had boogied late into the night.  Much to our dismay, we looked at the clock when we got home and saw that it was barely 8 pm!  Better luck dancing into the night next time!