Ecuador- Chapter 5- The Wedding Fiesta!!!

Drum roll please! After a great week in the North of Ecuador we returned to Quito and hopped a plane to Cuenca. Torcasa and Juan Manuel picked us up at the airport and drove us to our hotel downtown-The Santa Lucia.

Central court of the Santa Lucia

Through a bit of planning and some good luck we were staying in the same place as much of the rest of our family (the Seattle clan in particular). This made coordination before and after the wedding so much easier. We had arrived on Thursday and the wedding was to be on Saturday. I could go on and on about the fun we had walking the beautiful city of Cuenca (an UN World Heritage site) but the wedding was some much fun I'm going to skip forward with just this image of a church in the center of Cuenca and the flower market that resides next door.




The morning of the event the gang was at the hotel getting pretty. I even managed to get the wrinkles out of my suit. Before we left a few pictures were taken.

Torco holding court with the lovely ladies of Seattle

After a quick taxi ride we arrived at the hacienda near Cuenca where the marriage was to take place. When the wedding began at noon, Fidel and I walked Torcasa, radiant in a gown of her own design, toward the small gazebo where the ceremony would take place. He and I stood on either side of the gazebo as Torcasa and Juan Manuel said their vows and the witnesses did their duty. The completed the ceremony by planting a tree.

JM's last few moments of freedom

Then we all followed the newly married couple towards the hacienda where a magnificent spread was prepared for us. There were easily one hundred and fifty people at the tables when everyone was seated.


Aurelia and I were seated with Sarah, Fidel, Juan Manuel parents, brother and his girlfriend. The food was wonderful and the favored drink of the evening, "whisky", (whisky and water) began to flow. As a musician it is not surprising that Juan Manuel's wedding would be full of good sound. A number of bands played with one high point being a duet between JM and his father. The dancing began with Torcasa dancing with her uncle Gary, then Fidel and then me. Wonderful.


Soon many people joined in and the dancing got underway in earnest. Food continued to arrive at the tables: beef, chicken, salads, Cuencano sweets and the drinks flowed. Fidel and I took a break from the dancing and were caught being the boyz.

The happy couple. (What a lucky guy!)
More dancing and more whisky...



After eight hours of dancing and drinking the party turned its attention to a series of delicate tissue paper balloons that are held aloft with hot air generated from a tiny ball of alcohol soaked cotton suspended below their bottom. The rise slowly into the night sky carrying the name of the newlyweds into the thin Andean air.

The party began to dissipate but since we still had energy a bunch of us headed to a downtown hotel for after party whisky and food. After more eating and drinking and joking Aurelia and I crashed into our beds with sore but happy feet. Torcasa and JM headed off to a nearby resort for some much needed rest (ahem).