La Boda en High Easter

26th of May. My mother’s birthday. My sister’s wedding.

For weeks I had been telling my students that I was going to England for my sister’s wedding. Whole classes were devoted to matrimonial vocabulary. For months Carmen and I had carefully been collecting various parts of our outfits. My suit from El Corte Inglés, shirt, tie and socks from Zara. My shoes from a Chinese shoe shop in La Latina. My matching belt from El Rastro market. Carmen had endured a similar odyssey.

Not only Madrid was eagerly awaiting the marriage. My sister’s wedding in High Easter was the talk of entire towns and various small villages in Galicia. For Carmen, one of their own was going to an English wedding. England, the land of women curas (vicars), coffee in the Churchyard and above all – and by far the biggest talking point –, the land of pamelas (hats) at major events. This kept people gossiping for evenings upon end.

On the 24th of May Carmen – and with her a good part of Spain – was ready. So was I. The present had been bought (a full tea set, craftily manufactured by the Galician master’s of Sargadelos) and the suits were in the bag (a special bag for suits that is, Carmen always thinks in these things). We took the 20.50 EasyJet flight from Barajas Airport to London Luton (we were delayed, missed the last bus to London Stansted and had to wait three hours at Luton whilst keeping a dodgy man awake who admitted that Spanish real estate corruption was ‘his kind of style’. Eek!)
I told you Carmen was ready but I dare say she wasn’t. Actually neither was I. She had been asking me for a long time what the wedding was going to be like. What were people going to be wearing? I really didn’t have a clue. I had only been to two English weddings before, both of cousins of mine. The last one was two years ago and I have to admit it was great. There was a band inside the church and they were playing religious songs throughout the ceremony (and as I recall there was also someone dancing modern ballet). For the other one my cousin had rented some sort of manner (big, stately, country palace). All very Sense and Sensibility and quite the contrary of the Baptist wedding I mentioned before. I was rather sure that Emma’s wedding wouldn’t be similar to any of them. So what could I say?

On the other hand, Carmen’s experience of weddings was limited to Galician ones. Now one needs to understand that the most important thing of a Galician wedding (well apart from the couple saying their vows of course!) is the food. If there are less than 8 (!!) seafood dishes the wedding is considered to be poor. Thus, the most frequent question I was asked up there was ‘yes, but what are you going to eat?’. Again, no clue, although I was sure we were not going to reach their high level of expectation.

We arrived at the house in good spirits and everybody had there own little tasks of preparing things. My dad had the longest list of things to do, but had to scrap most of it as the making of the wedding cake was taking far longer than expected (Can somebody phone Ann and ask her if she knows why this Icing Sugar is not setting properly….please?!). In the meantime I had to pick up people from the Airport but I got lost on the country lanes. I am a city boy. At night we enjoyed an Indian meal with most of my Dutch family and some international friends. The party had begun.
26th of May. The big day. I woke up with a strange sensation. There were voices downstairs, one of them was unmistakenly regional Essex. This could mean two things. My mother had changed her accent overnight or the make-up artist had arrived. As I was still half asleep I was contemplating the first, but after rationality had taken over I whispered to Carmen that we should have to get up and she should head down to get her face painted. I was sent on some errands and my shopping list for Tesco’s included: 48 cans of Carlsberg beer, 12 roles of ultra-soft toilet paper, enough ice-cubes to fill have a tank, cheese-crackers (the amount was left to my own imagination), 2 containers of cereals (Frosties and Ricecles), a toothbrush, 5 packets of digestives, 6 liters of orange juice and a newspaper. The lady at the check-out counter thought that my parents had gone away for the weekend and I was making the most of it. She was wrong: I was making final and extremely vital preparations for a wedding.
Upon my return the house was buzzing. The make-up artist was still there and had been accompanied by the hairdresser since my departure. Neither was going to touch me though. After a quick breakfast of Ricecles I hoisted myself into the suit and discussed the plans for the day with my brother over a cup of tea. We were going to be the ushers of the wedding. This meant we had to move people from place to place. Most difficult was entertaining people after the lunch between the restaurant and the first song played by the band (there is a walk of 5 minutes between the restaurant and the tent in our garden which would be the scene of the party leaving a gap of one hour and 55 minutes). Easiest task: getting people away from the church after the mass towards the champagne.Piet and me left our girlfriends behind who helped my sister get into her dress (which up until than had hung in my room as a ghost reminding me what lies in the future) and headed to the church to welcome people and lead them towards the coffee. As we were walking through the village (we illegally crossed the cricket pitch and then turned right towards the church) I felt rather smart and I guess Pieter felt the same although we didn’t discuss this point. The first cars started arriving as soon as we had done. An elegant car with neatly dressed people turned up first. The woman was wearing a hat and the question “are you here for the wedding?” seemed ridiculous (the last wedding in High Easter was four years ago) at first but was an instant success with all the guests who thought it was slapstick ushering so Piet and I smoothly repeated the inquiry to all cars arriving at the car park.

Things were going well and soon Carmen, Ernestine (my brother’s girlfriend) and my mother also arrived. Upon seeing coffee in the churchyard Carmen giggled her first giggle. This is not how it normally goes. People have coffee in their houses not in churchyards. A fair point really if you think about it. But there was no time to relax for the usher, soon we had to push people towards the church and so this is what we did. However I felt a bit useless when David the coffee man moments later raised his voice to the crowd and asked them to move to inside the church. I had been outplayed. After about ten minutes everybody was in. Well, everybody except my dad (who for once had a good excuse for being late!) and the bride. The vicar churned out the standard pre-ceremony babble, no photos, try to keep quiet and, oh yes, maintaining the church roof is an expensive business so please donate something upon leaving the church. Carmen poked me and we both laughed at this begging. The good old Catholics in Spain are still heavily supported by the state.
There were some agonizing minutes between this warm-up and the arrival of the bride but the ancient organ-player (who actually seemed part of the furniture) kept us all entertained with some snazzy tunes. Alex – the groom – put on a smile and was looking around a bit. Was he dancing to these melodies? There were quiet chats between family members and friends who hadn’t seen each other for a long time. A lot of nodding, I don’t know why. And then it happened.
Some whispering at the back soon turned out into real excitement. My sister had arrived and was making her way into the church. I turned around and the first thing I saw was my dad’s everlasting beaming smile. “The man is going to have some serious cheek-ache tonight,” I thought as I turned my eyes to my sister. She looked beautiful, stunning. The dress fitted perfectly and was very elegant. Slowly they walked down the isle, like in the movies really.
Actually, everything was a bit like in the movies. The vicar started the mass and soon we were singing. Why does everybody know the melodies to these psalms except me? Luckily, the funny thing about psalms is that you can sing them with any melody you like and you still fit in with the rest. So this is what I did. Carmen isn’t used to signing in church (in Spain they have choirs!) so she just hummed.

After the singing and signing it was time for the big act and the vicar had a small surprise up her (rather spacious) sleeve. First, she asked the happy couple to take their vows (I swore Emma was going to break out in the giggles whilst the vicar was struggling her way through Alex’ middle name: Gerrit) and then she addressed the audience. “Will you all support Emma and Alex during their marriage?” Unanimously we shouted “We Will”. I could feel Carmen’s eyes fixing on me. I knew what her question would be and the answer was ‘no’. No, this wasn’t customary. With that – and the Lord’s prayer – the ceremony ended and we all rushed outside for the photos to be taken. Some had already spotted that the coffee had been replaced by champagne and headed straight for the outside bar placed next to the tombstone of someone who had died in 1932. Happy faces all around.
For the ushers this was a busy time as general entertainment is one of their tasks and there was a lot to be done. Slowly a line was formed outside the restaurant which conveniently shares its backyard with the church and the important people received handshakes and congratulations. The ushers were the last to enter the restaurant. The bottom of my tasty third champagne glass was telling me to slow down. I did.
The table-seating was spot on. I was neatly placed between my godmother Caroline, Carmen and some of Emma’s posh Oxford friends. It was time for some food. Over some appetizing carpaccio with avocado we discussed the mass of the vicar. Over chicken with ‘some kind of sauce’, fresh asparagus and new potatoes we chatted about crazy Emma and Alex stories. Over desert (a chocolate bomb) we laughed about the speeches as told by my dad, Alex and his best man. Highlight was the question ‘how to say something nice about Emma?’ Answer: she was a very good hockey goal-keeper. Good one dad.

The wine was from the Marlborough Sounds, New Zealand (half of the room could testify that they had been on the vineyard of the wine’s origin or at least mighty close. A fact which I am not sure David the wine man appreciated) and was racing to my head. Simply delicious, but I took it easy. There was more ushering to be done. The hard part. From the restaurant to the house. In the end it was easy. Shove a drink in the hands of the thirsty and begin a party. It worked. The hours before the band (a very good heir to the Yardley Syncopators) arrived were spent with more chatting which became increasingly louder. By the time the band played their first song people were ready to start dancing. Emma and Alex traditionally took the first which was – I think – a Rat Pack song. From there on everything was just a bubble of laughter, fun, red wine, dance, chat, sit, white wine and talk. Carmen and I enjoyed a lot but it was evident that Emma and Alex enjoyed it even more. Felicidades.