I attended my very first Hispanic wedding! It was such a different experience than all the other weddings I’ve been to.
The day began with a Catholic Mass at a church. The entire Mass was in Spanish! The priest was also very strict about photos during certain parts of the Mass and would tell the photographer to step aside at times. After the vows, the godparents placed a big rosary around the couple in a figure-eight shape and handed the couple gifts.
After Mass, there was a four-hour break before the reception at Hacienda Los Laureles in Jurupa Valley, where there were horses and other animals! There were so many flies flying around the horses.
The reception was outdoors and it was pretty hot. There was no assigned seating, so we found a table with shade. The decorations were simple but so pretty! The couple gets their own table in the corner, close to the open bar.
A mariachi band came to play live music! The music sounded good and was very lively, but I was glad I wasn’t sitting directly next to the speakers. At the end, they also walked to play by the horses while the couple did a special dance! Since it was a smaller area, it was hard to see the couple. Some people stayed at their table to watch and the people standing by the stables blocked most of the view.
The whole reception was also in Spanish, so my friend and I both did not realize they had announced that food is ready until we saw people walking back to their tables with food. We looked at each other and said, “Food!” at the same time.
The food was buffet-style, but there were staff scooping the portion on your place. At the front of the line, there was a menu, and when it’s your turn, you tell the staff what you want. I loved the chicharron – it was so good! The only thing that I was not a fan of was how saucy everything looked. I wasn’t sure if it was good for food to be sitting in so much sauce on a hot day like this! At the end of the line, you can also add your own condiments.
With all the food on my plate, I tried assembling it all as a taco. When I looked around at everyone else, I realized that a lot of people were actually ripping up the tortilla into smaller pieces and grabbing their meats with it.
On the side of the main area, there was a small photobooth. I’m not sure if they announced it, but there weren’t that many people using it and the setup seemed a bit off. When we got back to our table from the photobooth, everyone had gotten a wedding gift from the couple – a hand fan, perfect for the hot weather!
As the dancing started, more and more activities came with it. The bride and groom danced with each other, their parents, each other’s parents, their siblings, godparents, and more. Then, the money dance started. Instead of pinning money to the bride’s dress, there was a piñata for guests to put in money for a dance with the bride or groom. A lot of couples went up, with the boy dancing with the bride and the girl dancing with the groom, but someone at our table said that you could also choose to dance with the bride if you want. I went up to check out the experience…and ended up dancing with the groom.
Another unique activity was when the groom and bride had to stand on chairs, and all the boys would crowd around the groom to hold him up while all the girls snaked around the tables before running into the boys to try and knock over the groom. I was pretty confused because I wasn’t sure what the instructions for the activity were. I was just following what everyone else was doing – someone grabbed my arm, and off I went running around the venue. This was so much physical activity!
The dancing continued into the night – the girl who caught the flower bouquet had to dance too. When it was time for speeches, everyone gathered around the bride and groom for toasts.
This was such a cool wedding and definitely a new experience! Congratulations to the newlyweds!