In the land of beef and malbec...: An Argentinean Wedding

Sa 10.27.12

before wedding festivities, I baked a cake
earlier that week I was inspired by all of the Facebook and Pinterest posts about pumpkin-infused baked goods, and wanted to bake something myself
however, I was a little bummed to discover that canned pumpkin doesn't exist in Buenos Aires (or at least I haven't seen it, nor had other bloggers whose posts I came across)
entonces, I decided to try what another blogger had done....use mashed butternut squash (pumpkins are a bit different down here, but butternut squash is the same and in abundance)
so over the past week, I found the recipe (thanks Monica, for testing it out and positing a delicious-looking photo of your Pumpkin Dream Cake on Facebook...your culinary genius inspires me)...
...gathered my ingredients: lots of butter, sugar (which we're kindof sortof trying to cut out), flour (white...also trying to cut out...good grief), and eggs...
and THREE bags of this sugar:

yes, THREE bags of powdered sugar were used to make this delectable maple cream cheese frosting (the Philadelphia Cream Cheese costs about $7 for 8oz here...needed 1 1/2 packages....ouch)
the next obstacle (after deciding upon my squash and hunting down cream cheese) was that I don't have our cake pans here...and I needed three 8" round pans...I did have one 10" round glass baking dish...so I used that...twice, and came up with this two-layer cake:

we cut a portion for that day to savor with our coffee, a portion for the fridge, and the rest (3/4 of it) went into the freezer...

...ended up being super moist, super rich, but the perfect pumpkin baked item to make it feel like Fall around here (it's spring and 80 degrees today btw)
onto the real point of this blogpost now...
...the wedding
Jake's co-worker, Romina, got married
she invited everyone from her team at work
the ceremony was at a beautiful, old cathedral downtown, Nuestra Señora de la Merced...

the invitation said 8pm for the ceremony, but I think the bride actually walked down the aisle closer to 8:30 and it was finished around 9:15pm...all customary practices for an Argentinean wedding

I was in love with her dress...which had this amazing train (note the paparazzi....the videographer and photographer were pretty intense)

the mass was in Spanish, of course, and the priest was a cute, old man that I couldn't really understand
only the couple received communion and the music included an organist without vocalists

another bride was preparing to walk down the aisle as we were leaving...they sure are night owls here!
a co-worker of Jake's generously gave us a ride to the reception, which was held at a former warehouse in Barracas (neighborhood south of downtown, next to Boca)
the venue was beautiful...really did a great job remodeling this warehouse...fully equipped with huge disco balls, a great sound system, and beautiful decorations

before the couple arrived, we were ushered upstairs for international appetizers (taco bar with chips and guac, and sushi bar!) and endless drinks
we were asked to take our seats around 10:30

and before the first course, about 5 songs were played where the couple danced, along with the father-daughter, family members, etc. it was fun to watch

table settings and center pieces were all very similar to what you might see in the States, as well as the guests' party attire
around 11pm the first course came out...was basically crepe-like packages, one filled with meat, the other with spinach and cheese...pretty tasty

in between courses, there was more dancing, and super cute slideshows of first the bride, then the groom, then the two together, and finally a video of their Civil Ceremony (which took place on Wednesday earlier that week...this is also customary for Argentinean weddings)

around 11:30 the main dish was served...beef, half of a twice baked potato, vegetables, and dinner rolls...I guess I was too hungry to snap a shot of this one
with an open bar, we had some fun. I started with white wine during appetizers...was asked if I wanted champagne when we sat down at our table (who would say no?), then couldn't resist a strawberry daiquiri that another girl at our table had ordered...
our table looked something like this with all of the stemware: