The Brazilian Wedding Experience

Like in the US, weddings differ by social class, geography, and religion, so it's difficult to generalize. But the wedding Eli and I went to on Saturday seemed to be fairly typical, since it was a Catholic, working class family. I didn't realize until halfway through the ceremony that not only was it my first Brazilian wedding, but my first Christian one, too. I think what surprised me the most was how similar it was to an American wedding.

The wedding was for a childhood friend of Eli's, who is my age, who married a lovely redhead. The ceremony was held in the military base church, a simple but charming chapel built in 1907 with the rest of the base. When we first arrived, a bride was on the way into the church, and we got worried and ran across the street. As it turns out, this particular church holds around a half dozen weddings per day on weekends, so it was actually the second to last wedding of the night--not the one we were invited to. So we waited around for a half an hour and it was finally over. If I was the bride of the last wedding, I would have definitely spontaneously combusted having to wait for my own wedding ceremony. But in the end, this is Brazil.

Finally, the wedding began. I noticed the guests were very dressed up, with some women in bright-colored ball gowns. I had been worried that my dress was too low-cut, until we went in the church and there was cleavage, cleavage everywhere (even the bride's).

There were musicians and singers on the upper level of the church, and they played an instrumental rendition of "Stairway to Heaven" by Led Zepplin for the procession, and then sang a Portuguese rendition of a Shania Twain song for the exit. You have to laugh.

The wedding party entered very slowly and methodically, and lined up in couples in each side of the altar, not by gender. (Here, apparently, the bride and groom pick both women and men, not just bridesmaids for the bride and groomsmen for the groom). The bridesmaids were all wearing long, prom-like dresses in different colors, and the the groomsmen were wearing suits, but not tuxes. Also, the bridesmaids were holding their purses, not flowers. The groom had this funny scrunched tie with a rhinestone pin in the middle, which I very much enjoyed.

My favorite people, though, were the flower girls, who were about two and a half, six and eight years old, all wearing rhinestone tiaras and matching white and gold gowns that looked like the Angel costumes from the Nutcracker. The littlest one had no idea what was going on and the other girls had to nudge her down the aisle. The bride was wearing an interesting gown with lots of beading on the bodice and a pleated skirt and train, as well as elbow-length white gloves.

The actual ceremony was pretty short, and involved a lot of standing up and sitting down, a lot of making the sign of the cross, and several mentions of building a house on sand. On the way out, the wedding party threw rose petals and rice.

We all headed over to the party, which was just a few blocks away at a military base social hall, which was surprisingly beautiful with all the flowers they'd set up everywhere. There were no assigned seats, so Eli, Eli's parents and I just picked a table. There was no buffet, and no dinner, only finger food. But waiters kept each table supplied with a basket of salgadinhos (small fried deliciousness) and also came around every five minutes with other snacks. There was an endless supply of soda and beer, also brought by very attentive waiters.

Eli and I headed to the separate dance floor for most of the night, where the DJ played a lot of American music from the 50s and 60s, a smattering of funk, and a little bit of American hip hop. The couple didn't stop the music to cut the cake (which, oddly, was not the same cake they served to the guests, we later discovered), but did stop the music for the bride to throw the bouquet. They didn't do speeches or toasts, and also didn't do the whole garter thing. They also didn't do a first dance, and very few people brought gifts. The social hall had weird time rules, so the party had to end earlier than expected. At the end, they gave out little party favors, sweet mini-cakes wrapped in corn husks painted gold called "bem casados," which I suppose translates to "well wed."

Comments

[Priyanka]

Weddings of all kinds are really fun. I went to a friend's wedding in SP and I was also expecting it to be different from an American wedding, but it wasn't really. Maybe I'm spoiled by Indian wedding lavishness. Good you had fun though.

[Alexandra]

Well, it is a bit different as far as Christian weddings can be different. For instance, there are no bridesmaids or groomsmen, no best man either. The couples up front are the"padrinhos", which are couples that both bless the union and are supposed to act as spiritual sponsors in much the same way as godparents for children. They are also expected to give better gifts.

Alan was very alarmed when we got to out wedding party and he discovered we didn't have a separate table. He keeps saying to this day that he had no table at our wedding ;)

Some people also find it odd that there are no speeches, no formal toast.

and another difference from American weddings is that in Brazilian weddings you need to invite every single person you ever knew so they tend to be a lot bigger. My mother sent 500 invitations for my wedding. Luckily most of those people didn't live in the city where I got married so only about 350 came.

And the reason you didn't see wedding gifts at the party is because it's not considered polite to bring the gift to the party; you deliver it at the bride's home before the wedding.

[david]

I figured out the custom about the wedding gifts from what I gleaned about Brazilian culture during our short visit. For a weird American wedding make sure you see Rachel Getting Married when it gets to Rio.

Well some relief here on the Hudson shores with the Dow up today by nearly 1000. This is unprecedented. Shucks, the real fell to 2.17 today. You can't have everything. It's still based on the new socialism of the U.S. and Europe. It wouldn't want my bank partly owned by GWB and friends.

[elena]

Aqui nos states já fui em dois casamentos( sobrinhos do meu marido). Achei algumas diferenças marcantes, especialmente no que se refere essa coisa de brindar os noivos que por aqui fazem e acho justo.
bjs,
me

[Corinne]

I had fun planning my wedding, since I mixed Brazilian and American traditions. I insisted on same color bridesmaid's dresses and a sit down dinner. Instead of the garter (I wanted it, but my husband was emphatically against it), a lot of times one of the padrinhos will go around to the tables with one of the grooms ties, and everyone will buy a piece of the tie (cut off for you). This is a way for the couple to get a little extra spending $$ for the honeymoon.

Another big difference (and a huge headache for me) was that invitations are usually hand delivered and most people don't RSVP (again, that may be a social class thing).

It is very common to just have finger food at weddings and one poor couple whose wedding I attended spent most of the night behind the wedding cake, posing for pictures with practically everyone they knew (another thing I avoided).

[Vera]

Hey girl!

I don't know if you will remember me... I am that girl that was living in Australia. I am now living back in Brazil with my Australian husband. I got married just two months ago and Aaron came from Australia with me to live here (is his first time in Brazil). Aaron is studying Portuguese but struggling a lot. Do you have any tips for a foreigner to learn Portuguese?

I thought you would go back to America and Eli to Europe. So you're in Brazil. That's cool. You really like here don't you? Aaron is not enjoying as much as I thought he would. He thinks it's to crowded etc etc.

Anyway I haven't been on your website since I came back to Brazil 3 months ago. Nice to know you stayed!

Tudo de bom e boa sorte no seu emprego novo!

Vera

[Gabriela]

Hi Rachel:
Much of what you accounted in this post made me think about weddings in Peru.
Each church makes several services on weekends, and it's better to take the latest one. In that way you don't have to leave to let the next wedding begin. After the religiuos service, everyone heads to the church halls, where bride and groom, and their parents (or those replacing them) are waiting for all the guests to greet them, kiss included. This has to be exhausting. The groom's dad uses to be the best man, the bride's mom uses to be the bridesmaid.
The groom and his father wear the same clothes: very dark gray suit, white shirt, a flower in the lapel. Women wear their best clothes.
If a group takes too long with this part, someone switches the light on and off until the message is understood and everyone leaves. That's why being the last service is the best.
After that, the closest guests head to the reception. And everything concerning the reception depends on the budget.
The reception starts with the newlyweds dancing a waltz, after that they dance with their parents and the new inlaws. After that, everyone dances modern music. No toasts, no speeches.
A couple of hours later, the newlyweds leave the party while everyone waves them goodbye.
All the best fomr Peru!