Quinceañera Festivity

Evelia's mother, Carmen Solis, cooks asado de puerco, or      pork with chili sauce, over an open fire outside their home in      Fellsmere, Florida, on the morning of the quinceañera. Family      and friends helped prepare five homemade dishes that fed       hundreds of guests at the reception inside the Ag Expo Center      at the Indian River County Fairgrounds.	It's after 2 p.m. the day of her quinceañera, and Evelia Solis      is supposed to be at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in      Fellsmere for the ceremonial Mass that officially declares her      passage into maturity. Instead, she waits at her sister's house      for her parents, who are late because in the chaos of preparing      for the quinceañera, one of Evelia' sisters lost the car keys.

 
 
 

Followed by her father and 10 chambelanes, or escorts, Evelia             leaves her sister's house, where she got ready, and heads for             her chariot, a Lincoln Navigator limousine that her parents             rented for her. "She's the center of attention and you have to             let her go first," said Velia Solis, Evelia's sister.	Bored by all the feminine preparations and tired of wearing             his tuxedo, Ramiro Solis, 13, takes a rest while his sister,             Elia, right, gets ready for the quinceañera.

 
 

Patricia Portugal, left, the videographer for the quinceañera, curls Evelia's eyelashes with a spoon while the hairstylist, Doris Vazquez Cano, center, watches her technique. Evelia's hair and make-up took more than three and a half hours to prepare.

 
 

Evelia's parents, Carmen, left, and Ramiro escort her into Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Fellsmere for the ceremony. Walking into the church Evelia is considered a child. When she leaves she’ll have been pronounced a woman.

 
 

During the ceremony Rev. Noel McGrath blesses Evelia. Following tradition, Evelia's godparents give her a bracelet, watch, ring, Bible and rosary, necklace and flowers in honor of her passage into adulthood.