La Plata, Argentina — This love story is indeed unbelievable; an anxious bride, clothed in her white wedding dress, is waiting to see her beloved.
Under the intrigued gaze of about 450 guests, she’s standing in front of the celebrant who’s ready to wed the couple.
At last, the groom makes his grand entrance, arriving on a sailing boat.
He hugs the bride for the first time after apparently proposing to her online whilst on a long sailing trip.
At last they are proclaimed husband and wife and the guests cheer as the groom goes in for the kiss. It seems a perfect romance, but appearances can be deceiving.
This surreal love story is the marketing gist of ‘Falsa Boda’, meaning ‘mock wedding’ in English – an entertainment company in Argentina that organises bogus wedding parties with actors playing the main roles.
Stranger still, none of these guests actually know the lucky couple, they’ve each paid 50 dollars to attend.
This staged event is rather challenging for the artists.
“We are not just being observed like in a theatre with all the people facing us and us looking at them from above. Here, we are among people. It’s different,” says the actress playing the bride, Camila Zuleta.
These offbeat parties at La Plata Yacht Club in Ensenada, a port located 60 kilometres north-west of the capital Buenos Aires, captivate up to 700 guests a night.
Since their inception in 2013, they have become highly sought-after acrossArgentina and now globally. ‘Falsa Boda’ is exporting its blueprint for mock weddings as far as Russia.
“We all like weddings but very few would like to get married nowadays. In light of this trend prevailing today, ‘Falsa Boda’ fits just right because it’s an almost perfect alternative to attend a wedding with friends and leave the party while everything remains the same in your life,” says Martin Acerbi, co-founder of Falsa Boda.
Regardless of how entertaining the wedding ceremony is, fewer Argentines are keen to walk down the aisle these days.
Against all odds, heterosexual marriage in Pope Francis’ homeland has significantly decreased – church weddings fell by 60% in the last two decades, according to a 2014 report by Argentina‘s Pontifical Catholic University.
For the Church in highly Catholic Argentina, mock weddings ridicule a religious ritual says Rev. Alejandro Russo, rector of the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Cathedral.
“These mock weddings seem like nonsense. It’s almost funny because it’s a lie and a costly lie, I shall say. It’s true that in some places, the wedding celebration, which should be free, costs something but this is wrong. The pope and bishops do not want (weddings) to be this way. However, this nonsense of paying a fortune to organise something fake for the sake of appearances seems more characteristic of other cultures than this one, which wants everything to be obvious, transparent and spontaneous. In other words, it’s a sort of cultural regression to create appearances that do not exist,” he says.
The South American nation’s younger generations find it difficult to commit.
Euphoric women might be excited to get the bridal bouquet, but what value does the custom have when it’s all for show?
The popularity of these staged weddings stems from the freedom it offers to be witness to the ceremony and part the celebration – without a friend of loved one having to get married.
They’re also a good way to meet new people, singles and couples mingling just as they would at a real wedding.
For Barbara Guerschman, an anthropologist from the University of Buenos Aires, these mock weddings reveal how much young Argentines care about the institution of marriage.
“I think that mock weddings are a type of simulation: I get married, I celebrate this institution but in reality, I don’t celebrate it. It’s a sort of game, if you wish, to recreate this institution. The sociologist Emile Durkheim talked about the fact we not only suffer from (the weight of) institutions but we also love them,” she says.
After all, hard-partying weddings in Argentina are known for being entertaining and long lasting, sometimes until six in the morning.
“It’s a unique party. I think it’s great. You can tell that people are enjoying the idea of wearing a suit, a tie and long dresses for women. This type of party was missing. It’s great,” says Andres Constant, a delighted guest.
As light hearted party-goers make the most of their night, others are dancing to the beat of a popular Argentine song from the 1980s.
Soon it will be time to leave, life long memories may be made tonight, but no life long commitment.
To answer the growing need for these sham ceremonies, Falsa Boda is putting on shows in Rosario and in Buenos Aires.
The company plans to expand to Brazil and Chile in the next few months.
This video was produced exclusively for Associated Press on November 9, 2015. Click here to watch it.
