Tico Tuesday, March 31st

Happy Tico Tuesday!

This week's picture is of Claudia Viera (my Honduran sister) and her husband, Rolando. They got married on Saturday, and it was a joy to be there! (It was one of the reasons why I wanted to get to Costa Rica so soon.) I haven't been to a ton of weddings, but this was the most Christ-centered one I've ever been to. It was beautiful!!! (think Civ-Arts, you Grovers) Every part of the ceremony pointed to the union of Claudia and Rolando as representing the union of the Church and Christ, which is what marriage is, according to the Bible. More details on the blog... (further explanations, decorations, music, etc)

Have a blessed rest of the week!

Carrie

The details:

The Vieras cherish Jewish traditions. Not only are they fascinating and historical, but they also shed light and give deeper meaning to many things in the New Testament. So, a lot of aspects of the wedding were in accordance with Jewish tradition. The bulletin explained the traditions of Jewish weddings and how each part of it is fulfilled/in concordance with Christ and the Church being the ultimate groom and bride. It explained the bride price -Jesus paying the price for our sins on the cross, the no-walled tent (think “Fiddler on the Roof”)-the Tabernacle in Heaven that will not segregate worshipers and priests (I hope I remembered that right), and the bride waiting for her husband to come-the church awaiting Jesus' Second Coming. And that part was especially neat because Clau went down the aisle first. In a typical wedding the bride is the last one in because she is all prettified and there are dumb traditions that say the groom shouldn't see the bride until she parades in. But, looking at it from the Biblical perspective, it makes 100 complete and total sense for the Bride to go down the aisle first and await her husband's arrival.

And Claudia didn't just walk down the aisle, she danced! She is a dancer and choreographs a lot of interpretive dance-ish things in church. She also had three little girls with butterfly wings and headbands with springy butterfly on top dance down before/with her. It was gorgeous. Her mom, Doña Ester made her dress, so it was adequate for dancing. Oh, and once she got up front a couple young girls release butterflies and they flitted around everyone the rest of the ceremony.

Jorge, Claudia's Dad then got up and made a few comments about why Claudia came down the aisle first and a few of other other things. He did a great job at pointing out that the Bible is ALL about the redemption of man. Then, Rolando (who sings with the worship team in church frequently) sang as he came down the aisle. I tell you, in some ways this wedding was like a dream.

There was a little homily thing about taking on the characteristics of God, because that is the only was we can love others and have successful relationships. We can't do it on our own. I can only remember 3 out of the 4 characteristics though, love, forgiveness, (the forgotten one) and unchanging. God is unchanging. We clearly change and will continue to do so, but our love shouldn't change (or if it does it should only be for the better).

Claudia and Rolando sang their vows to each other. The end was so beautiful it was a perfect moment for them to kiss and the pastor said he feared for a moment that they would before they were pronounced man and wife. It was really cute. Thankfully they didn't have to wait for long.

After they exchanged the rings and kissed, but before the recession they had the parents come forward and pray for them. That was really special. Then as they walked up the aisle together in the recession we all threw rose petals on them and set off firecrackers and spewed confetti everywhere. What a joyous occasion!

The reception was on the same property, so we just had to walk less than a minute to get there. The reception was fully of more music, including a special piece Josué (Claudia's brother) wrote for her, and people periodically getting up to share abut and bless Claudia and Rolando. The food was simple and delicious. The cake was gorgeous. It was covered in a plain white fondant and had layers spread out over half the table with sunflowers all through it. Sunflowers and butterflies were the main decorative themes. So, the centerpieces had sunflowers in them with little butterflies on sticks in them. My description doesn't do them justice. They were lovely.

And one of the nice things was, they waited to do pictures AFTER the major activities of the reception. It was so nice to not have to wait an hour (or more) for the reception to start! Well, everyone had to wait over an hour for the wedding to start because everything was running late. But, that's ok. I was actually with the Vieras helping however I could, so I didn't have to stress about not getting there on time. It was really nice. I love not stressing!

So, it was a beautiful day. I wish I could do it better justice. Everything was gorgeous and intentional. And it was fun. I got to sit with all the other young people from church. I am getting to know them a little bit better, which is really good. They are wonderful people. So, there you have it. Thank you, Lord for bringing me here in time to be at this wedding!