I?d like the opportunity to chime in for a bit, and give you my personal take to what happened to me in a similar situation about a year or so ago. An ex-worker of mine, whom now lives in the States came back to DR to marry his wife. He got in touch with me and asked if I could be his ?Padrino? at his wedding. Knowing Dominican custom, I immediately said I could?nt because I knew he would ask for the cake, booze and the pictures to the event. Every time he asked, I was assertive and stuck to my guns with the immediate response ?No I can?t, times are hard, so on and so forth?.
After a while and tired of this guy constantly asking me to participate, insisting in that he only required that I sign as witness, I gave in, but only agreeing to sign the wedding papers as a wittness!!! On the day of the event, I suited up went with him and his wife to be, towards the ?Juez Civil? to be witness and sign as promised I would do.
Afterwards we made our way back to his house to participate in the well known rituals of this occasion. As the festivities began and the booze was being passed back and forth, people whom I didn?t know began coming up to me, requesting to take a picture with me and the groom. Now I must admit that I?m not a good drinker, meaning that I get drunk very easily, doe to the fact that I?m a devout christian, as such I don?t partake on these types of lifestyle often.
Some time during the festivities, at about 12:00 in the morning, this guy sits down next to me and begins to whine about how expensive the party was and how much he had to pay for the professional photogropher. Being that I had already drank a lil something, eaten, lauged and had a reasonably fun time I finally gave in and told him that I would help him with the photos, without mind you, not actually knowing how much the photogropher was charging. He thanks me, and then proceeds to tell me that the photogropher was $19,000 pesos.
I know I should have kept my mouth shut, but being that I was under the influence of alcohol, I gave in. After sitting there all by myself I began to think about what I had done, after a while of seeing people dancing laughing and having a great old time, I figuered I should now go all out and have the darndest time of my life, cause after all, I was now funding some of the festivities. I grabbed a bottle of Gray Goose and began dowing it as if I was some sort of master in drinking. At about 2:00 in the morning I was completely out of my mind, talking all the bull**** any drunk normally talks about, at some point I offered to pay for the booze of the party.
At about 3:00 in the morning the groom had to drive me home, because I was too wasted to drive myself. I remember stopping a few times so I could get out of the car and vomit while en rout to the house. Yes pretty disgusting from a guy thats 98% of the time very lowkey and pretty lay back. The following day I had the worst hangover in Dominican history, I was waken up by the sound of the housekeeper while she tried to clean the vomit on the floor. Although I can?t recall, she said during the night I must have waken up and tried to make my way towards the bathroom not only in my bedroom but to the first floor bathroom as well, because she found vomit not only in the bedroom, but on the first floor of the house as well.
The end result to this story is that I was stuck with a total bill of $56,000 pesos. $19,000 pesos for the photogropher and thanks to my big mouth $37,000 pesos for the booze to which I only recall drinking one bottle of Baileys Irish cream and a half bottle of Gray Goose. Luckly all this happened while my wife was in New Jersey, because if she were here, I?m pretty sure she would have killed me. Hopefully she wont read this post.
Make of this experience what you will.