Sara: Ainara and Fernando's Wedding

On May 30th, Javi and I were off to wedding #1 for the summer. A big one too! Ainara, his sister, got married to Fernando after 6 years of dating. They had an awesome day--sunny and warm, and everything was beautiful. They got married in an old , Catholic church in the center of Barcelona and had the reception at the Hotel Juan Carlos I which is a 5-star hotel in Barcelona as well. Friday night before the wedding, both sides of the family went out for dinner to get to know each other a little bit better. Saturday morning, Javi's mom, Ainara, and I got our hair fixed and our make-up done. It was my first time ever getting my make-up done and I must say, I am now a BIG fan. HUGE! Anywho, after we got all prettied up, we just took our time getting dressed while the photographer came to their house to take some pictures of Ainara and the family. Ainara looked beautiful and so did her family for that matter. (javi looked ok in his tux.. :) ) Afterwards, Javi, his mom, and I went to the church and Javi's dad and Ainara got picked up in a fancy car that took them to the church for the 6:00 ceremony. It was about 45min-1hour long and then we headed to the hotel for the reception.

The reception was outdoors in the garden of the hotel and it was beautiful. They started off with appetizers and drinks for a few hours then we had dinner around 10:00pm and afterwards we danced away til 5:00 in the morning. The appetizers were really good and there were so many that I was full by the time dinner rolled around, which was ok because the meal was a light one.

Spanish weddings typically don't have bridemaids/groomsmen, but Javi was a witness in the wedding. I also had a little duty of holding 13 coins in a small box that Ainara and Fer exhanged to each other while saying their vows. I guess it is a tradition they do along with giving each other their rings and I am not sure what it means, but I stood at the alter with them along with the witnesses while they did all of these things.

It was nice for Javi and I to spend some time with his extended family because we don't see them very often during the year. Everyone was a lot of fun which always makes things more special! Ainara and Fer concluded their wedding weekend with a nice, 12 day honeymoon to the west coast in the USA. They went to San Diego, San Francisco, LA, Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon, and then to Hawaii for the last 5-6 days of their trip for some R&R. Congrats to Ainara and Fer!

Here are some pictures of the wedding... of course my camera battery died 20 minutes into the reception so I didn't get very many on my camera. I did take more with a friend's camera from the wedding, but I still haven't gotten those pictures!

Javi also was the 'padrino' (godfather) of Ainara for the wedding which means he had to say something to her whether it be a poem, a speech, words of advice, etc...he is telling her this in the picture.