Today we were invited to a wedding! Above is a bad picture (sorry, I was able to get only one) of the mother of the bride, Emma, our ama de casa -- our housekeeper. She has five daughters and three sons, and this was the last daughter to get married. Emma is very unusual for a middle-aged Mexican woman in being so thin, and all her daughters resemble her in this. The wedding was held in La Iglesia de San Francisco, to my mind a more beautiful church than the Parroquia at the Jardin, and the church held enough flowers to stock five flower shops. Tonight Emma will be wearing my red dress that I bought in Tunisia a few years ago, embroidered with gold thread.
We were able to understand relatively little Spanish because of the reverberation of the loud amplified sound caused such distortion -- the priest wore a big microphone around his neck. The service took over an hour. It began with something that astonished me: two women leading prayers (photo below)! The bride and groom are seated at the center. Emma and her husband Francisco, resplendent in his white mariachi uniform, are seated at the left with the maid of honor in front of them. At the right are the groom's parents and the best man.
It's a good thing the matrimonial couple had big white soft cushions to kneel on, because they were kneeling for a long time.
The picture below was after the exchange of rings, but the service was far from over.
After the priest and the altar boy gave communion up front to the newlyweds and their families, people in the church who also wanted to take communion lined up.
After the service was the time for photos. The newlyweds and the bride's parents:
And finally, both extended families:
What an honor!
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