A love letter from your great-great-grandparents
By Ben Gunter
When do all the generations in a family gather to celebrate the ties that bind? When do new families form, stepping gallantly into the gap between what’s been and what’s about to be? When does the rich tapestry of our past join hands with the bright threads in our future? At a wedding!
Theater with a Mission cordially invites you to a Historic Indian/Spanish Wedding at Mission San Luis, on Sunday, February 12, 2017, at 2 p.m. The only wedding of its kind in all the world, this heritage event transports you back 10 generations to Spanish La Florida, in the war-torn year 1703. Spanish missions are under attack by English-speaking Europeans to the north and non-Christian Natives to the west. So the Spanish soldiers and the Christian Indians who live at Mission San Luis are fighting back – by getting married.
This dramatic reconstruction of real life in Spanish Florida lets you join in the processions that bring bride and groom to the Church door, participate in the responses (including the Pater Noster) that make them man and wife during the Latin mass, then party hearty as the whole Mission throws a Fiesta for the new couple, complete with historic songs, dances, and a wedding-reception play. You’ll become part of the family, as a cast of two dozen actors, all exquisitely costumed in authentic period clothing, brings you face to face with Florida’s intercultural life from 300 years ago.
Every part of this experience has been diligently researched, then vividly revived for you to enjoy. The songs you’ll hear come from the 1600s, and the toast you’ll drink comes right out of Don Quixote. The Fiesta play is a special gem – a delicious 30-minute satire that follows a tiny troupe of actors into a big town where there’s just been a big society wedding. The actors sell the bride’s family a performance that “only people whose parents were married by a priest will be able to see.” It’s called El retablo de las maravillas, Where Only the Pure See Miracles, and it’s by Miguel de Cervantes, the creator of Don Quixote. Theater with a Mission’s unique translation lets you meet vibrant characters from Florida’s Spanish past, and hear their ideas about marriage in their own words, translated into crystal-clear English that’s peppered with extracts from the original Spanish.
It’s all free with standard admission to Mission San Luis – $5 for adults, $3 for seniors, $2 for children, and $0 for active duty military. Sunday, February 12, is right before Valentine’s, so there will be historic ways to Share the Love at Mission San Luis from noon till 4 p.m. that day (see
https://www.missionsanluis.org/visit/photo-gallery/ for details). Theater with a Mission’s Historic Indian/Spanish Wedding starts at 2 p.m., and lasts about an hour and a half.
Join us! Come experience a wedding your great-great-grandparents would recognize. It’s a once-in-lifetime opportunity to step into a whole new point of view on families in Florida.
