Blogging Again!

So with summer vacation well underway I have decided to start blogging again! My other blog (Kathy's Travel Blog) no longer fits me as I am no longer traveling... so I have decided to blog about my Brazilian life. I will write about my life in Sao Paulo, my experiences in Brazil and the differences from American life, and believe me, there are MANY! I know my other blog only lasted about a month. I will try to keep this one going longer!

So over the weekend my husband Leto and I went to his cousin's wedding. A Brazilian wedding is very different from an American wedding. First of all I have never met this cousin before and Leto has not see her for a while, yet he was in her wedding. In Brazil the bride and groom select who they want to be in their wedding. The bride has her friends and family (men and women) and the groom has his friends and family (men and women). In America the bride usually chooses her bride's maids and the groom usually chooses his groom's men. In Brazil the bride does choose her bride's maids but they are usually partnered with their husbands or boyfriends. The same goes for the Brazilian groom. He chooses his groom's men but his groom's men are partnered with their wives or girlfriends. Leto was partnered with his sister, Sol, killing 2 birds with one stone for the family representatives. As you may realize this equals a very large wedding party! Last weekend's wedding had 12 couples. My sister-in-law said she went to a wedding with 25 couples! Imagine that!
Unlike an American wedding the Brazilian bride's maids wear all different dresses and the dresses have to be all different colors. As opposed to the American bride who wants to standout and put her bride's maids in unflattering dresses, the Brazilian bride's maids get to look as ravishing as they want, sometimes even upstaging the bride with a neon pink dress (as one bride's maid was wearing this past weekend). The Brazilian groom's men, however, all wear the same tux.

In Brazil most weddings start in the evening. This wedding was supposed to start at 8:30pm. Me being my father's daughter, and fashionably early arrived a few minutes before 8. Leto and I were the very first ones there. The catering staff were still setting up. Leto was a little embarrassed while I could care less. So we were sitting and waiting, sitting and waiting. Slowly people started to arrive. The rest of Leto's family arrived a little before 8:30. It looked as if there would be no one at this wedding. My sister-in-law, Sol, even commented that it is a bride's worst fear, for no one to show up at their wedding. Nine o'clock came and went with not a hint of the start, but at least the venue was starting to fill up. Brazilian's were definitely not raised by my father, and prefer to show up fashionably late rather than fashionably early. Nine thirty came, one hour behind, and still no start in sight. Finally at about 9:45 the wedding party was called to back of the dance hall. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief thinking that it was about to start, and it did start, 15 minutes later. During the wedding, I was not really paying attention. As it was in Portuguese and I was distracted by taking pictures I understood very little. Finally I heard the "I dos" and there was the exchanging of the rings. Then the part came that I dread. The bride and groom went around to every single person in their wedding party, hugged and kissed them while receiving well wishes and congratulations. This wedding party had 12 couples, 24 people that the bride and groom needed to hug and kiss, imagine the wedding that had 25 couples! This tradition makes weddings so much longer than they need to be.

After the ceremony comes the party. The party doesn't differ that much from an American wedding reception. There wasn't really a toast, it was more of a photo opportunity in front of the cake for the bride and groom. I don't think that anyone at the party was aware that the "toast" and cake cutting was even happening. The buffet opened and people began to eat at about 11:30pm. Now I was a banquet server at weddings in California, and the weddings there had to end by 10pm, where as here, in Brazil, the ceremony was beginning at 10pm. Leto's family wanted to leave at about midnight and had to ask to have the cake cut so they could take some home. I thought that was cute.

The dancing began at about 12:30am and out came the goofy sunglasses, fake sequined ties and feathery boas. I am not going to lie, I love this tradition and I have developed quite a collection of plastic star sunglasses from all of the weddings I have been to here. This tradition is fun and gets everyone, even the shy guys sipping their whiskey in the corner, to come out on the dance floor and act silly. While all this silliness was going on a few of the groom's men were walking around with the groom's tie and cutting it into pieces and selling the pieces to the other men at the party. This replaces the American tradition of the money dance and give the bride and groom some cash for their honeymoon.

Leto and I decided to leave at about 1:30am, although I think the party could have gone on for a couple more hours. All in all it was a nice wedding. Most of our friends are married so it will probably be a while until the next one.