If you haven’t read our last blog post, now might be a good time to check it out because this post is going to be all about our second trip back to what has become one of our favorite places in Ecuador, the indigenous village of San Clemente. The second we left the first time, we knew we would have to return. So, we were over the moon when Maya let us know that there was going to be a local wedding, and that we were invited to attend. We had heard so many stories about what these weddings were like, and we knew that we had no choice but to jump on the opportunity and go.
If you are wondering how we got invited to a local Ecuadorian wedding, their traditions for invites are very different from what we are used to. The couple is actually not in charge of their guest list at all. The couple chooses an older, married couple that they feel close to to be the padrinos, basically the godparents of the wedding. Then the padrinos plan the entire thing, including who is invited. Maria Estela and Guido, the parents of the family that we always stay with in San Clemente, didn’t know the couple either! But, they were friends of the padrinos so they, and anyone who wanted to accompany them, were invited to the wedding.
The night before the wedding, we were having dinner in their incredible home, and we asked about what we could expect from the ceremony and party to follow. Guido then walked us through some of the traditions that go on at these giant parties. The highlight of the story was that in super traditional marriages, it is customary for the guests to kidnap the bride and groom and hide them somewhere. Then, the guests need to go and find them, and while they are looking for them, the rest of the guests fill their house with sticks so that it looks abandoned. When they are found, they can both rejoin the party. The idea behind this tradition is that the padrinos are stealing the newly married couple to run away together in the mountains, which is why everyone else makes their current house look abandoned. It seems like at this point this tradition is a big game, and Guido assured us that after the guests customarily fill the house with sticks, they make sure to clean it up after. After this hilarious story, we couldn’t wait to attend the next day.
We woke up early to the sound of the rooster crowing from a tree directly outside of our window. We got to work making breakfast as Maria Estela is always convinced that we will go hungry if we don’t eat every two hours. After our favorite breakfast of homemade tortillas (the thick Ecuadorian ones) and hot chocolate made from fresh milk, we started to get ready for the party.
Maria Estela insisted that Maya and I dress in the traditional clothes, although Maya and I are both considerably taller than everyone in San Clemente. She asked a friend who had a very tall
daughter if she could share, and luckily she said yes. The outfit consisted of a beautifully embroidered shirt that was knee length, and then a high waisted matching skirt. They also gave us necklaces and bracelets to wear to complete the outfit. Before putting all of this on, Maria Estela even braided both Maya and I’s hair in the shape of a heart. Lastly, even though she looked everywhere, Maria Estela could not find any shoes for my gigantic-in-Ecuador size 9 feet, so I had to go with my own shoes. It was so fun to learn this intimate part of Ecuadorian culture, and Maya and I felt so grateful that Maria Estela offered to let us dress in these beautiful clothes.
We did a little photoshoot in the backyard, complete with some guinea pigs, and then headed to the chapel in their truck. Something we learned the first time that we came to San Clemente is that if it is physically possible to help someone, you will help them. This is how Nolan, Maya, and I, along with a few extra locals, ended up riding in the bed of the truck with five more people inside.
We arrived at the closest little town that had an old and beautiful church and piled out of the truck, excited to see what the ceremony would be like. However, before we could even make it to the door, it was clear that we, three gringos, two of which were wearing traditional outfits, were going to stand out in this group. All heads were turned towards us, and we heard many shouts of “hello!” as we passed by. We walked through the doors and found our seats in the quickly filling church.
Something else that we had learned the night before was that weddings here don’t usually happen when the couple gets together or they want to start a family. Weddings happen when the couple has the money to spend on the party. So, the couple who was getting married this day had actually been together for many years, and they had a 3 year old son. This was all the more convenient because they decided to just have a wedding and baptism all in one! So, the ceremony started with the vows between the couple. Once that was finished, they did the baptism. And then, they finished the traditional catholic mass. All in all, the entire ceremony only took 30 minutes! It was unbelievably efficient, and it was abundantly clear that everyone really just wanted to get the party started.
When we left the church, the band was already waiting outside to welcome the married couple, or los novios. Everyone was chearing Viva los novios! And people got straight to dancing. We had heard that local Ecuadorians loved to dance, and that people would actually be celebrating and dancing until dawn the next day. As Nolan and I also love to dance, we were excited to join in on the party. However, we quickly learned that this dancing was very different from what we were used to.
Outside of that church, a circle of people formed and they just started walking in a circle to the beat of the music. And then, everyone once in a while, someone in the circle would turn around, and then everyone would slowly walk the other way. And that was it! Everyone was clearly excited to join in the circle as it grew quickly, however, it didn’t even look like the people in the circle were having very much fun. They were straight faced, walking in a circle to the music. It was obviously quite different to what we are used to, but as the dancing was fortunately easy, we joined in quickly and walked in that circle for a little bit, before it was decided to take the party to the reception.
We took our seats in the bed of Guido’s truck and headed back up into an adjacent community in the mountains. We waited around for a while, which we realized was one of the main features of Ecuadorian weddings, until the rest of the party arrived. Then, we waited around some more, until eventually people started passing around drinks.
This was probably one of the most bizarre portions of the night. The people who were helping with the wedding pulled out crates of room temperature, liter bottles of soda and beer. Then, they would pass out the soda bottles to some of the women and beer bottles to some of the men (maybe one of each for every 5 people). Each of these bottles also came with a very small, very flimsy plastic cup. Whoever received the bottle was then put in charge of passing out the drink to people around them. This is how it would go:
Someone with a bottle of beer or soda would offer you a cup of the drink. You only had two options, to drink it, or to ask them to drink it first, and then you drink it. You drink it quickly and all at once, and then hand back the cup, say thank you, and then they will go to the next person and it would happen again. Yes, everyone used the same cups. No, nobody was worried about it in the slightest.
After a few big chugs of warm soda and beer, we were ready for dinner. Maria Estela and Guido made sure to warn us that there would be a TON of food and that we were not expected to eat all of it. Shortly after the liters of soda and beer were passed out, another lady came around to give each of us a plastic spoon. Maya let us know right away that we couldn’t lose the spoon because it would be the only utensil we would be getting the whole night. We held on tight.
After the spoon came a gray container of chicken soup, our first course. There were no tables or chairs, besides for the immediate family, and so we quickly found a ledge in front of the door to sit on. We started slurping up our chicken soup which was super delicious in the cold mountain air. I unfortunately received the neck of the chicken in my bowl of soup, which was quite difficult to eat with a plastic spoon that I could NOT break, but Nolan handed me his chicken leg and so I was happy.
Up next they gave us the main course, a traditional horneado. We each received a styrofoam plate covered in mote (a kind of cooked corn), a pile of roasted pork from the pig we had seen near the bathroom, and a small salad on the side. After the soup, there was no way I could come close to finishing this plate. I spent most of my time eating the pork which was delicious, while Nolan spent all of his eating the mote, the only vegetarian thing offered so far. After I was more than full, Maria Estela took each of our plates and put the rest of the food that we didn’t finish into some containers to take home.
After this giant plate of food, there was still more food to come. However, the hosts knew that there would be no way of eating more, so for every two people they brought a plastic bag full of bananas and bread rolls, a bag of a traditional fermented corn drink that needs to be stirred by
one person for 8 hours, and another kind of soup. After all of these to-go portions of the meal, they brought each person a cup of hot chocolate and a small block of local cheese for dessert.
Especially because Guido and Maria Estela had come with three gringos, they had enough food for the next week at least. The next morning they really wanted Nolan and I to try the fermented corn drink, even though Maya advised against it. We each gave it a little sip and it was fairly disgusting to us. But I am sure we just don’t have the local taste buds, because they were ecstatic to have it.
After this meal that could feed everyone at the party at least three times, it was officially time to get on the dance floor. Nolan procured another bottle of warm beer which he was happy to share with Maya and I and we hopped into the circle, walking one way and then the other, for quite a long time.
And, although we were quite skeptical at first, after a few beers, the circle dancing really turned into a party. A few songs that sounded exactly the same in, Nolan and I even dared Maya to change the direction of walking in the circle and she was successful! It was super fun to party in this different way with people so removed from where we were from. At one point we decided to take a little break, and started a conversation with a local who was about our age, and it was so fun to have this fully Spanish conversation with a peer who was also there for the party. We eventually hopped back into the circle, where people were still handing around cups of warm beer and we marched in that circle all night.
Except when I say all night, I really mean until about 10:30. We heard that the party was going to continue until 6 or 7 in the morning, so we decided to make an early exit to try and get some much needed sleep before the rooster started his cock-a-doodle-doing. As we made our exit, Maria and Estela of course found every single person at that party who needed a ride home, and we fit probably twice as many people in the truck on the way home as we did on the way there.
Going to this wedding in San Clemente has been one of Nolan and I’s top experiences in Ecuador. I don’t know if we could have ever foreseen this happening, considering the luck we found in meeting Maya, not only an incredibly close and dear friend, but also a person with such a close connection with an indigenous family. It was also such an intimate experience for Nolan and I since we are in the finishing steps of planning our wedding. We could see the comparisons, and of course, the insanely massive differences that weddings in the United States and these local weddings have. But I am sure that one huge similarity will be the love that is showered on the happy couple. Everyone at this party was so excited to celebrate the couple and the love that they shared, and I know that will be the case at our wedding as well. And, if you see us circle dancing come July, you’ll know why.
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