This is the first in a four-part series.

There are ways to celebrate and then there are ways to celebrate. Take, for example, the idea to hold a wedding 5,000 miles from home, to bring over 70 people from your life to a sprawling country estate in Argentina. The clouds lift just in time for the outdoor ceremony beneath an arch shrouded in flowers, emotions flowing at self-written vows. After that all your guests are strewn across a lawn for a garden party. Drinks appear, along with some particularly vigorous fiddlers; off in a corner, an asado grill churns out the meat, which wafts over and sticks to the guests. By nightfall the wedding party settles beneath a tent laced with golden lights, where each guest’s name plate includes a personalized appreciation. First dances draw tears, speeches turn to roasts, fog machines erupt and the DJ carted in from Boston churns out the best hits of 2012 for over four hours. We dance, we sweat, we wave around glow sticks and don ridiculous Argentine soccer swag. The estancia is aglow as the backdrop, reflected in a small pond, and when the feet are sore and the livers protest, it invites everyone in to sit in the drawing room’s enveloping couches and drift toward sleep. Dreams and reality blur.

I am in Argentina to celebrate Phil, one of my college roommates, and Jess, a friend from that era who went on to become more than a friend. He grew up in Schaumburg, Illinois, not far from my Chicago area relatives, and his easy Midwestern style remains contagious. On R Street, Phil occupied the basement lair, emerging for video games on the couch or nights out in DC or to tutor local students and occasionally for class too. The Tuesday trivia host at The Tombs most certainly knew who he was, and if Georgetown’s honor were challenged by invaders from Syracuse, he would rise to the challenge. He brought a good party with him everywhere.

Phil possesses an endless spontaneity and willingness to try just about any new thing. This does not always go well, but it brings collective fun when his schemes work and collective humor when they don’t. His college era shenanigans matured into a hunger for travel and United Airlines status. (Perhaps someday he will share his secrets over how he has gotten that company to not treat him like a heap of dung.) The old Phil is still very much around, though, as anyone who was taken on his wild goose chase for the utterly remarkable biscuits from a generic New Orleans chain named Willie’s can attest. His loose humor is a gift from his mother, as I learned from her savage send-up over dinner, a blend of pride and good-natured ribbing that summed up Phil perfectly.

From the outside Phil could make it look easy, shrugging off any nerves and from there quickly learning what he liked and disliked professionally. But there is a design here. He meets challenges with honest examinations, seeks the counsel of good friends, and possesses an uncommon tenderness that manifests as a strength. It is not hard to see how Jess, a star of the business school at Georgetown, could fall for him, and how they could come together as a well-complemented power couple. Jess can live as large as Phil but insists upon reasonable bedtimes and good life decisions, a diligence evident in the wedding planning, where her remarkable skill in pulling things and people together in a land far, far away shined through every time I took a moment to consider another aspect of what went into it.

Phil and Jess’s wedding is indeed on point: big, loud, no detail missed. It begins with a welcome lunch, which I miss because I am inbound on a ferry from Uruguay, and it proceeds from there to a welcome dinner at the Four Seasons in Recoleta, the swanky core of Buenos Aires. Guests stride up the streets in their finery, old college friends appear here and there, and the energy swells. After we mill about with drinks for a spell, a pair of tango dancers emerge, and they leave us in awe: feinting and swinging, pulsing with sexual energy, physiques perfectly tuned. From there we are seated for what becomes the first of five straight days of steak dinners for me. The buses then carry the wedding party out to the estancia, and we proceed from there.

At Estancia Villa Maria the wedding guests are split between the main villa, the neighboring Casa Francesa, and a series of more modern houses developed a short distance away. The older buildings are endearing in their old-world opulence; over the course of the weekend I hear allusions to Downton Abbey, Bridgerton, and Clue. I join the groomsmen in the Casa Francesa, where I shack up with my old roommate Trent and his wife Kelly in a suite that includes a balcony off the shower. Brunch is communal on both our days at the estancia, a gentle blurring of friend groups as we sip maté and nibble on pastries, gaze out at the polo ground beyond. At times it is hard to believe this is real.

This wedding is a spectacle without sacrificing intimacy, aided by an Argentine culture that enjoys going for it without any reservations. Phil bawls through a substantial portion of the ceremony, which is both predictable and endearing, and he and Jess can laugh through it and bring us along for the ride. Not once did this adventure feel gratuitous or attention-seeking; it was two people doing a wedding exactly as they wanted, with the people wanted, in a way that made it a party for everyone. Twice over the course of the wedding night, when I need a bathroom, I take the long stroll across the lawn to the house instead of using the convenient port-a-potty so I can savor the night and approach the tent in reverence, drink it in before a new tune inspires me to bolt back to the dance floor. Those two late nights, with nightcaps on the couches as the crowd dwindles, show how deep ties can be over space and time.

I will need to return to Phil and Jess’s Bed-Stuy brownstone before long, and someday we will make our planned pilgrimage to Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. But for now, I will make sure this wedding to end all weddings is seared into my memory like a good Argentine steak on a grill, a rare meat indeed. What a delicacy, to have been brought along for this ride.

Part two is here.