It’s been a week since Abraham and Rosa got married. With this last and final post about the wedding, I get to relive the day. I hope you enjoy it.
Chapter III: The Wedding Party
Weddings in Teotitlan del Valle, Oaxaca can be grand affairs that include a sumptuous multi-course fiesta dinner complete with music that goes on for hours and this one was no exception. Over 350 people packed into the home courtyard of Abraham’s uncle, a very gracious host.
I’ve been to village weddings where as many as 700 people have been seated and served by a minion of family members and friends who have been cooking, serving and cleaning up for days before and after.
A traditional Teotitlan del Valle wedding can last three days and nights, with lots of dancing, drinking, talking, cooking and eating, continuing long after the bride and groom have left for their miel de luna (honeymoon).
Abraham and Rosa’s wedding was different. The celebration started and ended on the same day. But, I bet the cleaning up part lasted as long!
As soon as we were all seated, guests honored the married couple by presenting their gifts, table by table. Matched sets of dishes, cooking utensils and vessels appeared as did many blenders, perfect for making salsas, soups and fruit juices. As soon as the presentations were completed, dinner was served.
For Rosa and Abraham’s wedding feast, the seated dinner featured consommé de borrego, a rich lamb broth, followed by an entrée of barbecue lamb, salad, rice and noodle salad. The 15 lambs came from Rancho Juarez and brought down the mountain in a truck to where they were slaughtered. They were cooked in cauldrons of spicy tomato broth set into hot coal lined, covered earthen pits. They simmered overnight until they were fall-off-the-bone tender.
The broth was then mixed with cooked corn, peas, garbanzo and green beans, and diced tomatoes served as consommé accompanied by fresh made soft tortillas and a large, crispy pizza-sized tortilla called a tlayuda.
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There was plenty of water, chilled hibiscus tea and horchata to drink. There was not the usual bottles of mezcal and cases of beer presented as tribute gifts and then opened for consumption that dominates the usual Mexican wedding parties.
The music was classical, orchestral and easy listening. Without liquor and dancing, no one overindulged, got out of hand, passed out or left early to sleep it off.
Fun happens in other ways. There are games. After dinner, tables are folded and chairs lined up to clear a space in the courtyard center. With the bride on one end and the groom on the other, each standing on a wooden chair, him holding on to the trail of her veil, her grabbing tight onto a pole, it appeared that the goal was to see who would topple off their chair first.
This is not a wedding game I’m familiar with, but it was a lot of fun and we all enjoyed watching what would happen next.
A new game? Body Toss.
Abraham lost his balance, fell off the chair (or was pulled off) …
and got tossed into the air. In case you don’t recognize him, Abraham is the figure with the lavender shirt floating skyward. 
Whew, that took a lot of energy from the young men who guaranteed that Abraham would have a night to remember. After the body toss, they needed to rest!
Who’s Getting Married Next?
Time for the throwing of the bride’s bouquet. All the single young women gathered as Rosa tossed her flowers over her head to the assembled group behind her. Good catch, Gloria! You must be next.
Now, it was the groom’s turn to toss the tie to the next lucky man to tie the knot. But, not before a little joking around.
Yes. Bobbing for Apples.
After the bouquet and tie toss, married couples were asked to participate in a game of bobbing for apples. We all got a kick out of which pair could eat through a dangling apple first. It was hard for me to focus with all the moving around.
Let them eat cake! And, they did.
There were four or five tiers of wedding cake, make with pecans and topped with a yummy cream. The grand finale of the day. Abraham and Rosa did what was expected — feed each other cake. Another happy moment to bring a close to an incredible day.
As the bridesmaids unpacked green glazed Atzompa pottery for the bride and groom to give to each guest as a remembrance of the occasion, I thought about what a beautiful and satisfying day this was.
I was especially gratified to be able to capture most of it with photographs that Rosa and Abraham will have for their personal album. Perhaps someday they will show them to their grandchildren and I will be there with them in spirit.
Festivals and Faces: Chiapas Photography Workshop–January 2016
Oaxaca Love Story: Carol and David Get Married
On Thursday, January 12, at the bench in Labastida Park where they first met a bit more than two years ago, Carol Lynne Estes and David Levin got married.
Carol Lynne Estes and David Levin at Parque Labastida
It was one of those gorgeous late afternoon Oaxaca winter days punctuated with clear skies, bright sunshine, passersby on bicycles, street vendors hawking fresh roasted corn-on-the-cob, a group of salsa dancers in the adjacent space waiting for their teacher, school children with noses in open books, mothers towing recalcitrant children.
We gathered to witness and give support to a great couple!
As we gathered, Gail Schacter, a Victoria, B.C. snowbird, retold the story about how she introduced Carol and David. Seems that she and Carol had gone shopping to replenish incense sticks from the ceramics shop inside Plaza de las Virgenes. As they exited onto the street, Gail spotted David, who she knew, across the park on a bench eating a sandwich after his gym workout. They went to say hello. The rest, as they say, is history/herstory.
Oaxaca is a place for convergences, new discoveries, exploring identity, creating new beginnings. Living here has a way of opening us up to possibilities. It also stimulates us to see what we are capable of doing, being, becoming. This is not a new-age concept, but one more of what it means for some of us to live life more passionately, fully and in support of each other’s choices.
It is more than escaping the chilly north for a patch of winter sun and clear blue sky. Young and older gravitate here for so much more.
From the moment that Carol and David met, they were inseparable. Carol’s girlfriends had to get used to that! We quickly learned that this was a couple who stuck together, so an invitation to one was an invitation to both. Their devotion to each other, I think, expanded our capacity for friendship, inclusion and intimacy.
The park bench where it all began! Felicidades.
Some of us wondered about this unlikely couple, a Texas English teacher and a South African Jew who settled in Canada after university study there. Theirs is a model for respecting traditions and differences.
Carol, Gail and David remember introductions
In 2015, Carol and David traveled together throughout Asia for several months, learning to negotiate everything. And, it seems, they managed this pretty well. They didn’t kill each other! They returned to Oaxaca even more committed to their relationship and started planning their next adventure.
Mary and Carol, celebration time.
Life takes us in unpredictable directions. On a stopover in Toronto to visit family last summer before going on to India, David had a medical set-back. Now, with great Canadian health care, he is recovering well, but they need to be in Toronto until the treatment plan is complete.
Amidst the hubbub of a public park, a wedding!
David and Carol are making Toronto home for the time being, but they came back to Oaxaca to get married at the park bench where they first met. Oaxaca is their heart home. We gathered round in tribute to their love, commitment and testimony to all that Oaxaca can provide for each of us in different ways.
May your cup over-floweth–with mezcal, of course.
In Spanish: Saludos. In Zapoteco: Chichibayoh. In Hebrew: L’chaim. With Bob Klotz officiating and Mary Erickson standing as a matron of honor, we raised our cups of mezcal. What else would one drink at a Oaxaca wedding?
Divine lemon cake from La Pasion bakery in Colonia Reforma, tops off the event
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Tagged expat, gringo, marriage, Mexico, Oaxaca, wedding