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| The Bride and Groom are in the center with their backs to the camera. The man standing up is giving the bride and groom advice. This advice-giving and well-wishing takes up a big chunk of Guatemalan weddings) |
Apparently Guatemalans only like to get married right after I move into a new house. Obviously it has taken me a while to blog about this since I moved to this house last November. Guatemalan weddings are nothing like American weddings. Naturally it is hard to generalize. I have been to three different weddings here. All of them were very different, but all three were very different from American weddings that I have been to or heard about.
First of all they have all been morning / early afternoon weddings. Each one started out with a breakfast at a family members house where they set up tables and benches outside under a tent. Secondly all three couples were married by a lawyer. The weddings were done in a combination of K'iche' (the Mayan language) and Spanish. There is never any dancing (probably because I live in a predominantly Evangelical town). After the ceremony there is lunch. As a goodie bag each time I have gotten a bag of bread to take home.
What has varied from wedding to wedding was what the bride and groom wore. The first wedding I went to the bride wore the typical Mayan traje. The second she wore a white dress, and the third she wore a more every day looking traje with a sweater. In the first two weddings the groom wore suits, and in this one he was dressed more informally.
I found this wedding to be a little awkward. I had only just met this family and moved in with them a couple weeks earlier so I was still getting to know everyone. The tables were very segregated by status as determined by gender. The bride and groom sat in the middle of the table of men who were served first by the women. As a guest of honor and resident gringa I was invited to sit at this table. It turned out fine, but I felt out of place next to the bride and groom whom I had never met and surrounded by the older men. Oh well it certainly was an experience. And I got two meals and a bag of bread out of it.
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| Hearty breakfast |
Curious that in a somewhat religious culture the marriages are civil ceremonies. Might there be some sort of church service before or after (even another day)?
ReplyDeleteGood question! I should probably blog about this. Maybe after my next wedding (I'm going to my 16 year old host sister's wedding next month). People do generally bring gifts - I think. They aren't exactly on display at the wedding. For one thing there is definitely no registering for gifts. From what I have seen, a normal wedding gift is a little bundle of 4 or 5 mixed and matched bowls or cups bought in one of the little stores in my town. There is nothing fancy to any of the gifts that I have seen, but they are practical.
ReplyDeleteThe meal was pretty good - just a little much for 8am. Especially because the norm was to eat 4 or more tamalitoes (the compressed rectangular version of a tortilla that are wrapped in corn leaves). The tamalitoes are in the basket at the top of the picture and an unwrapped one is on top of my spoon.
I like the simplicity of the Guatemalan approach to weddings. And the advice giving. Should you decide to get married Meg, perhaps you'll want to do it Guatemalan style.
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