We Interrupt This Honeymoon....

I, the Registrar, Ivonne, and June Welsh, wife to my Best Man, Lee

Three weeks ago today Ivonne and I were married. The shock that followed the escalation of my cherished $50 drive-thru wedding to something closer to one hundred times that costly passed smoothly with the first Margarita at the reception, which I had made part of the contract with my favorite restaurant, Baci Ristorante: the best tequila, as cold as an outer planet (shaken and strained so that there would be no diluting ice) and with enough salt on the rim for three heart attacks. They lived up to their end of the deal magnificently! After the second one I couldn't even read the bill....

Mariachi "Arriba México"

 

The seven mariachis were superb and superbly in tune. They knew every song in the canon. Most importantly, they played the traditional Mexican wedding music for us. Ivonne's family has been steeped in the mariachi tradition for generations. Her father sang professionally with such groups and, like Ivonne, knows the music cold. The mariachi tradition is dying out in Mexico: the musicians are all old guys with few younger men to take their places. Blame the Internet and the iPod. I don't have a recording of my group, but, if you'd like, here's a sample (mp3) of the kind of music they performed. The wedding became instantly authentic when my newly-minted father-in-law teared up trying to sing his mother's song, Mi Cariñito, with the mariachis, who kindly rescued him.



The wedding was bilingual. I gave all of my responses in Spanish (or, more precisely, in Spanglish), while Ivonne responded in English. I hoped to make it obvious that we were sharing cultures as well as lives.

Three out of four of Ivonne's children

Curiously, there is no special word in Spanish for the newlywed. Recién casado ("recently married") is just so matter-of-fact, like saying the temperature today is eighty-six degrees. Newlyweds are precious and endearing. They can't help but show their new intimacy and the adventure of the first days of their new lives. Everyone smiles at newlyweds, everyone hopes the honeymoon will last forever. (Everyone sighs because they know it will not.) At my age, and with all of my marital mistakes, I never expected to feel like a newlywed again, but, yet, here I am, as giddy as a schoolboy. Ivonne and I laugh, delight in our secrets, and tell everyone we meet, we just were married! I smile like an idiot most of the time. Everything we do now seems special. I am loving every minute. I wish you all could have been with us for the wedding. Now, to resume the honeymoon....