A couple of weeks ago, a friend of the bride and groom’s emailed me. She and a group of guests had arranged a surprise: a six-piece mariachi band to play during the reception.
The friend explained how the bride had originally wanted to hire a mariachi band to surprise the groom but it just didn’t fit their budget. So their friends had secretly raised the $500 instead. When should the band arrive?
Pepperoni raindrops
Believe it or not, this was not the first wedding I’ve done with a surprise musical guest.
Last summer, a groom asked me to help him arrange a surprise appearance by a guy named Ron Hexagon whom they both loved. Ron is a teacher who plays local bars for a little extra cash. He couldn’t get over that someone had asked him to play their wedding.
I will never forget the sheer look of joy on the bride’s face when Ron walked out and started singing his song, “Ninety-One.” She grabbed her husband’s hand and they ran toward the dance floor. They twirled and laughed and kissed in front of everyone as Ron started the chorus: “Ninety-one, twenty-two, fifty-seven, fifty-five pepperoni raindrops falling from the sky.”
The surprise
On Saturday, the mariachi band arrived halfway through toasts. I squirreled them away in the lobby of the sports bar where the couple got married.
The friend who helped arranged the surprise told me to cue the band as soon as she finished her toast. I waited at the back of the room with the six men. They were dressed in matching white suits with sparkling sombreros. The friend finished her toast and I nodded at the band leader.
“Vamanos,” he said. He brought his trumpet to his lips. Two piercing notes cut through the air as he walked around the corner and into the party. I watched as the bride started to cry.
Abuelita
The mariachi band played for an hour. Near the end, the bride’s grandmother approached me. I knew from the marriage license that the bride’s mother was from Mexico. So was her grandma. She told me how she had asked the band to play a certain song and they actually knew it. The violinist was from her same town.
No one had expected Abuelita to feel like dancing at her granddaughter’s wedding. She’d lost her husband, the bride’s grandpa, just a few months earlier. But the mariachi band started to play and she started to two-step.
“I hear the music,” she told me, “and I feel like I am 16 again.”
I smiled at the bride’s grandma and told her that she didn’t look a day over 21. She laughed as she headed back to the dance floor. A new song had started and her granddaughter was waiting.