Wedding Favors at a Latino Wedding
I've decided that Latino weddings are not all that incredible different from White Middle Class American weddings.
My wife and I were invited to a Mexican wedding in El Paso recently. I love the feel inside the city's older Catholic Churches. You feel as though you're breathing history.
The ceremony had a few moments that were novel for me. The lazo (a large rosary symbolically draped around the necks of the bride and the groom as they are knelt at the altar in the horizontal figure eight pattern that represents infinity) provided are touching moment that you don't see in tradition American weddings. There was also a moment where the groom presented the bride with a small silver box (the arras, they tell me) with lots of filigree. I learned that it contained 13 gold coins and symbolized the groom's promise to be a good provider.
At the end of the day, though, the overall flow of events and the nature of the experience was very similar. There was a time of solemn commitment followed by music, food, wedding favors and celebration. It was a memorable event.