The Wedding

We were very privileged after such a short time here to have been invited to the wedding of Esteban and Barbara, daughter of our neighbour Anna fron across the street. The ceremony was set to start at 5.30 pm at the church of Nuestra Senora de Los Remedios, just outside Olvera.

Unfortunately, the weather as it has been most of the week, was wet and windy but the show had to go on.

We arrived at the church not quite knowing what to expect. Barbara turned up on time to meet with Esteban at the altar. The church is not very big and there were as many guests standing outside as were able to be seated in the church. Throughout the ceremony everyone remained standing and before we knew it the happy couple were emerging as man and wife just after the church clock chimed for six o'clock.

Esteban and Barbara emerging as man and wife. It is a tradition here to throw rice and upon leaving the church there was a deluge of rice thrown.

Anna, our neighbour and proud mum in green with Rosalia, Barbara's sister.

The bride and groom toasted each other and then threw the empty glasses over their shoulders into the assembled gathering.

We met up with a lovely English trio, Kathie, Amy and John who were friends of Esteban. Kathie and John live out in the campo and have been here about five years. Their daughter Amy joined them about six months ago. They don't live too far away from us so we are planning a trip to see them soon.
We followed the example of others and left the church to return for the reception at the "Celebraciónes de Madrid", a large banqueting and dance hall just on the outskirts of Olvera at 9.30 that evening.

The bride and groom arriving. There must have been at least five hundred guests assembled at the reception, many of whom we knew from our travels in and around Olvera .

We met up again with Kathie, John and Amy. Honestly, John was there but for whatever reason I didn't get a picture of him. My apologies John if you ever read this.
It also appears to be a tradition that the bride and groom hand out "favours" to their guests. For the men were inscribed pens, for the ladies a decorative lapel pin and a small pot pourri.

We all enjoyed a delicious four or five course meal........I lost count after a few free beers and wines.

After the meal and the distribution of the favours, everyone retired to the bar and the disco at the end of the hall.

We saw a table and chairs being set up in the middle of the dance floor and assumed that it was for some of the children to sit and enjoy the celebrations. We were sitting slightly further back in the hall at this time with Barbara's mother Anna when she said "go, go, you enjoy", so we went to have a look at what was going on.

Barbara arrived and proceeded to climb onto a chair and then to stand on the table. At this point, she lifted her dress to reveal about twelve garters. Esteban then dutifully removed one garter at a time and proceeded to place it on the leg of a guest selected by Barbara to receive it. This is a tradition I was beginning to like more and more.
The disco resumed and eventually at three in the morning, we decided to take our leave and go home after a really fantastic day.