Chile Forum

I wonder if anyone can throw some LIGHT onto my eternal burning question that in such a sun rich country people choose to get married in the DARK...so many people wait until the sun has gon before staging the ceromony...i cant get an answer as to why...surely sunlit time is more beautiful or is this a chilean thing or a religious thing or a vampire thing?..........i dont get it

I have asked a dozen people here at work and nobody seems to know why. It goes back to the Chileans be a nocturnal breed and it is better to get married at night then have a reception and then off to the discos. It´s what they say anyway, I remember getting married here at night then having my reception with cutting the cake and dancing a few songs and I thought great.....I´m ready to start my honeymoon, just like the gringos do right...tie the cans to the back of the car and drive off to the hotel. I was wrong! I didnt get to bed until about 5:30am the next morning cause I had to wait until everyone left and help clean up along with my new bride. kinda pissed me off a bit but what are you going to do...

yea, my wife seemed to think it was more about the tradition that the party after should be big and run most of the night. Hard to do with an afternoon wedding.

admin wrote:yea, my wife seemed to think it was more about the tradition that the party after should be big and run most of the night. Hard to do with an afternoon wedding.

I don't know, I have been to morning weddings where the partying has still been going the next morning. But then again, that's in Australia...

Yes, I believe it has to do with the party. Several traditional new years eve parties I attended didn't really start until late-dinner at 11 pm, maybe a drink before midnight but most of the party was after midnight. Then there was some serious partying, drinking and dancing

Other parties were the same-even those that start late afternoon don't really start until well after dark.

I've only been to one Chilean wedding and it was beautiful and really well done. Church service around noon or 1pm, then lunch, followed by dance floor opening around 6 (it was in summer, so still broad daylight), Piscolas and Scotch starting to flow and then a sheep on the spit for the night time munchies. The party finished around 4am.

I think it's just a Chilean thing, I went to a Chilean wedding in Canada and the ceremony was at 7pm with the reception at 8pm and it went until 5am the next morning. It was also really big all of the Chileans family and friends flew in from Chile with all of the free alcohol you wanted and dancing until 5am.

I was looking out the window of my living room this afternoon around 4:00 PM and I noticed a gathering of people alongside the lagoon at the back of Edificio Coraceras in Vina ... lo and behold, it was a wedding party. Photographers were busy taking pictures of the wedding couple with family members and guests ... presumably the marriage ceremony took place earlier at a local church. Following the picture taking, the reception began (in the banquet room directly above which has a large outside balcony area for viewing). Needless-to-say, as I write this post, it's still going strong.

I think it's got more to do with the full regalia that some people would to wear to add more glitz and glamour to the event. You can't wear the same thing during the day as you do at night. You can also make the occasion more romantic by adding candle light and you can't do that during the day.

The other possibility is that people thought that by doing the wedding at night, that people would naturally would get tired sooner and want to go off to bed, and thus reduce the expense of the catering, but, that doesn't really work with Chileans. They stay on and on and on......

thanks for the input guys, the train of thought seems to point to ...the later the party goes...the better the wedding must have been...kinda like...OH YEAH well our guests stayed until 6am...boasting rights lol
its too bad because many couples miss out on the great light and loose the chance for nice soft lit natural portraiture wedding photography...instead it ends up artificial light and indoors as it gets cooler at night and the brides dont like to hang ou bare shouldered.

Hopefully in time they will see the benefits of moving the service forward a couple of hours...i think the guests will party hard regardless into the small hours of the morning.

thanks again...

anyone got any funny wedding stories???....i love to hear them...