Brazilian Wedding

The last place I ever thought I’d end up in Brazil is at a wedding. Well, maybe not the last, but I wasn’t expecting to attend one. However, my husband’s coworker invited us to his wedding this past weekend. I was really looking forward to comparing the differences.

Being Catholic and having a Catholic wedding myself, I pretty much knew what to expect at the service. It was similar to weddings at home. However, there are no separate wedding parties for the bride and groom. Each chooses couples to stand on their side and they act as sponsors. Also, no matching bridesmaid’s dresses. Everyone wore something different however they all stayed somewhat near the main color scheme which was purple.

Staying true to Brazil’s need for excessive documentation, the bride and groom and all the sponsoring couples signed a stack of forms during the ceremony. This gave us a good laugh. It just wouldn’t be an event in Brazil if there weren’t a lot of documents. I only remember signing our marriage license and we did this before our actual ceremony.

There were an unbelievable amount of camera folks there too. They were literally in the bride and groom's face the entire ceremony and reception. There was a video guy, two camera guys and another guy taking pictures with a small digital camera. They’ll get some great photos, but that would have driven me crazy to have the cameras in my face all night.

Now, on to the reception. I have honestly never seen a bride and groom have so much fun at their wedding. Props began to come out later in the night. Glow bracelets, goofy glasses, hats, blinking lights and pom-pom head bands. There was a smoke machine going too. It was like Carnival and New Years Eve.

Let’s first talk about the time frame. The wedding ceremony started at 8:00 p.m. Brazilian time. (This means it started late.) We got to the reception about 9:30 p.m. and were greeted with a beautifully decorated, two-story party room. Waiters brought around appetizers and drinks. In addition there were two elaborate appetizer buffet tables set out. We were able to eat and drink plenty before the bride and groomed arrived.

This is where it gets a little different than what usually takes place in the U.S. The bride and groom arrived, cut the cake, had their first dance and shared a toast with their family all within about 15 minutes. Then the music was turned up and everyone started dancing. It started out with typical U.S. wedding music – YMCA, Dancing Queen, 80s remixes, etc. Then it changed to Brazilian pop music and then to Brazilian country music.

Dinner was served at about midnight. No one really ate at all. People were too busy dancing. We weren’t hungry at this point so we skipped dinner as well. The cake came out about 2:00 a.m. It was served with ice cream, no mints and nuts. This I did have because I was craving it all night. It was pretty funny because apparently everyone else was ready for cake at this point too. People were dancing out on the floor with their cake plate and fork in hand, eating away while they danced.

No dollar dance at wedding receptions here, but they do the traditional cutting of the tie. The groom’s friends gather round and chant and take the groom from guest to guest with scissors. The guests drop money in the hat and cut a piece of the tie off. This is much, much more expensive than the dollar dance, by the way.

I can’t finish the post without talking about the most interesting thing of the night – the bar. Actually there was no bar to go to. The bar came to the guests. There were about 4 different sets of waiters – the Guarana and water guy, the sparking Italian wine guy, the beer guy and the scotch and soda guy.

They carried around trays with bottles or pitchers and glasses. Anytime you weren’t looking they filled your glass. We’d leave the table with an empty glass and come back to it full. The scotch guy was making his rounds on the dance floor filling up glasses in people’s hands while they danced.

The best part is that there was one waiter who was designated to the bride and groom. He followed them around the entire night with a tray holding some appetizers, a bottle of scotch, and their drinks. He was never more than 5 feet from them. What an awesome idea! Poor guy though. It had to be an incredibly boring night for him!!

So this whole bringing the bar to your guests is such a cool concept. There is virtually no tipping in Brazil either which is great for tight people like myself, however I was very tempted to give these guys money. They worked hard all night. Much different than the open-bar bartender who expects a $2 tip for pouring a soda for guests at a wedding in the U.S.

Needless to say we had a blast dancing the night away. We ended up leaving about 2:30 a.m., but the party was showing no signs of stopping. The bride had told me they would probably go until 4:00 a.m.

We had fun dancing at our own wedding reception, but our contract ended at midnight and the guests had to be out by 1:00 a.m. I don’t know how the bride and groom did it. I remember how incredibly tiring that day was. I would have been asleep at a table with my face in my cake by 4:00 a.m.!