jeezz, what a weekend… it has been some years since the last time I had to attend to someones wedding, and I nearly forgot why I hate it so much. Not that I have something against weddings itself – I couldn’t care less about it -, but the celebration afterwards, in particular the traditional lunch-dinner is quite something. Wedding celebrations are probably one of those things that vary a lot from country to country; the only ones I know are the typical portuguese and I like to call them: eating marathons.

The starting line is at the bride and fiancé houses (depending with whom you are family or acquaintance with) over some appetizers. There, you’ll find cheese&ham, general pastries, pâté, random cookies and whatever fits in small dishes to fill a large table with them. After everybody had his own full-body photo with the yet-to-be-married by some nifty corner of the house, and the table is nearly empty, everybody gets packed in cars and heads to the ceremony. The event, itself, lasts from twenty minutes to one hour, and always ends in a “surprise” rice shower over the newlywed *.

That done, the new checkpoint is by some greenish background where each couple or person takes another full-body photo, now with new couple and their new hair decoration; this lengthy session is proportional to the amount of guests and is not optional to anyone. Photographer happy, time to head to the next checkpoint: a carefully prepared food fest where the main event takes place.

From my experience abroad, I’ve learned that portuguese people typically eats, well, a lot; and when one starts to eat in appetizers as much as his typical meal, you can guess where he’s going to. Imagine an all you can eat restaurant but with no medium-low quality food: only with bold, tasty, delicious, yummy, i-must-have-a-bit-of-that-too, nobody-dislikes-this kind of dishes. When I said earlier it was a lunch-dinner, it wasn’t because it can be either, but because it can be both: it can last for hours non-stop. It actually gets to a point where it can be disgusting (to me at least), seeing all that ingestion having for finishing line, the physical limits of the body, with everybody trying to cross it.

Of course my opinion is biased due to my limited experience (thank goodness) on this events, and I’m sure this is changing although there are still a big amount of them like this, the old way. Oh, nearly forgot: it’s normal to include some car honking along the way and for the fearless, there’s some dancing by the end (don’t ask me how).

I hope no one else in my family is thinking about getting merried anytime soon: I’m not going, not even if I have to apologize to the whole family. Thank you, but not thank you.

* If one day I get married, I’ll do it in an hot-air balloon; thus, I’ll be the one throwing rice over the guests, when landing :D