The Engagement Dinner, Where Families Meet

Last weekend, E (my fiancé) and I traveled down to Naples, otherwise known as Retirement Village or Village of the Damned Old. What would entice us to, first of all, go to Naples and, second of all, waste so much gas going there? Well, remember the whole us-getting-engaged thing? We figured our families might appreciate knowing who they were accepting as their own. We’ve been dating over three years, but our families have never actually met each other. *Enter scary music.*

Yes, we were off to Naples for my family to meet the fiancé’s family. I’ve seen situations like this plenty of times on TV, which of course makes me an expert on the matter. We are supposed to arrive late, drenched from the rain and muddy up their house while one relative drinks himself into stupor and another burns the turkey and/or drops the mashed potato tray on the carpet. Right? Oh, I forgot the argument or two the parents are supposed to have amongst themselves, making everyone feel awkward. Maybe a kid can drop a half-sucked candy in my purse before I leave “for later.” To my utter amazement, these things did not happen. My main fear was this: My family speaks mostly Spanish and his family speaks none. My secondary, but somewhat related fear was that my family would be very shy (except for my dad, who sometimes talks so much that people don’t really know what he’s saying in that Spanish accent).

I did everything I could to make it as smooth-sailing as possible. I wanted to have it in a restaurant in Naples (where E’s family lives, 2 hours North of my parents, 4 hours South of me) so no one had to do any cooking or cleanup. However, each time I mentioned this Engagement Dinner to any of E’s family members, they assured me that they would make the turkey. I had E tell them the restaurant idea, but they insisted on having the dinner at their home so that everyone could mingle. Everyone? Everyone is my mom and dad who speak mostly Spanish, my sister, my brother and sister-in-law who will be busy with the baby, and my fiancé’s parents and teenaged sister. Really, the only people who would be saying much (our dads) could just sit nearest each other in the restaurant. Anyway, I was outnumbered. My only request was for catered food so no one would have to slave in the kitchen and we keep it simple. They said of course.

Here is where it gets good.

About two weeks before the event, E starts getting frantic calls from his father. His mom has apparently gone nuts-o with preparations. He can’t seem to muster any other words than “your mother is freaking out.” I think he just repeated that 5 or 6 times. I keep telling E to remind them I just want something simple that requires no prep other than calling a restaurant to make sure they’ll send food at some point during the day. About 4 days away she called and asked how to spell my family’s names for the place cards… Let me repeat myself. PLACE CARDS. At this point, I know I’ve lost control. If the magnitude of this dinner has gotten to the point where she thinks place cards at the tables are the next logical step, then it has gone way past the simple dinner I wanted it to be. Now my family is going to be extra shy because they’ll feel all out-of-place and intimidated. All I wanted was for his mom to maybe vacuum the floor and make sure there are enough paper plates for people to serve themselves.

My family get-togethers are usually some rented tables for the food to sit on and lots of paper plates and plasticware. Plastic tablecloths, too. Then we pray and line up to pile great mountains of arroz con pollo, pernil, pan con mantecilla, yucca con mojo, pasteles, arroz con dulce, and tembleque on our winn-dixie brand plates. That’s what makes us feel at home. I hope his family can visit mine in Miami soon to see it.

The day finally arrives and we are warned to stay away from the house as long as possible. We stop by in the morning to drop some stuff off and see if we can help, and I immediately enter into panic mode. His mom has spent the past two days making hors d’ouvre after hors d’ouvre. There are so many starters and dips in the works. She also had a cake made for us with our names on it (I actually loved this part and thought it was a great idea), brownies, and strawberries with their own sauce for dessert. There were huge wildflowers that must’ve cost a fortune ready to go into tall floor vases, roses, and detailed little centerpieces for each table. There were the name cards, along with full sets of fine china and family silverware.

Doilies.

Once I found out she had hired her daughter and her daughter’s friend to “work the party,” E decided we should leave. We would pick up a couple of things she still needed and have a quiet lunch. I guess he saw me starting to shiver. I have to take a moment to say that his mom is a wonderful, fun person. She only goes overboard sometimes because she wants to do a good job and make everyone happy. Apparently, she’s into this event-planning thing.

We took a moment to visit my family in their hotel once they got into town so I could have a quiet reunion before dinner. I hadn’t seen them in a few months. Their reaction to the actual dinner was about what I expected. They were really shy and asked me if they were under-dressed (except for my sister, who asked me if she was dressed too fancy, oddly enough, even though she was in cute jeans, a polka-dot top and matching shoes and hair band). The first 5 or 10 minutes were spent introducing people and then listening to the painful silence that followed. My fam wandered around a bit, clearly out of their element and pointed out various beautiful details. Luckily, they opened up with a little time. People starting talking, although they later told me they were a bit weirded out by the teenagers waiting on everyone with hors d’ouvre trays and drinks. I was sad that his mom ended up spending most of her time in the kitchen and not much time chatting. I could tell my family really liked her when she was around.

Besides a few phrases that needed repeating or translating, all went -mostly- well. We all had a great time, enjoyed the food and my family loved his family. They didn’t really like Naples the city, but that is to be expected.