Tell me about your weddings/committment ceremonies!

[RainCoastMama]

How did you include/combine cultures? I'll write about mine as soon as I find a snack for my 'starving' DD

[Bruden]

Despite being raised Protestant, my husband and I got married in the Catholic church he went to growing up and our wedding was done half in Polish, half in English. The fun part was we were married in Sweden.

[aussiemum]

Dh & I married in a British Registry Office- I'm not sure how traditional that is in either the US or Aus!

We didn't have any family there, but we did have some really good friends by our side, & it was lovely. I wore a blue & white checked cotton dress, & had a hand-picked flower bouquet & DH wore a embroidered white cotton shift/shirt.... It was all very 1990's English hippie. And loads of fun- especially the reception that night at our little inner-city terrace house.

[LaffNowCryLater]

Well we were both raised in the same city so even though we are different races we share the same culture sort of. Just a typical wedding, Christian preacher (I didn't care who did it- dh's mom want a religious person though), married at a chapel in the same building that the reception was in. Nice sit down meal etc.

[GinaNY]

My dh is Filipino and I am Puerto Rican. Since we both have that Spanish Catholic Island thing going it wasn't so odd for either of us.

We got maried in Puerto Rico on the beach. It was supposed to be small but 155 ppl later....oh well.

We had a very traditional full mass with the cord, veil, coin and candle ceremonies. We also had a local priest and an Irish priest who is a long time friend of the family divy up the responsibilities. The reception was on site.

It was bigger than I wanted, but a really good time.

ETA: I wore a white dress. The men on my side wore Guayaberas and the men on his side wore Barongs. Invitations were in English. Spanish ones sent to my family in PR. Favors were Hawaiian cookies in a palm leaf box with Orchid and a palm leaf fan.

[eepster]

We had a renegade catholic priest who does catholic weddings w/o the classes DH wasn't willing to attend, and w/o the mass and sermon that he wasn't willing to sit through (he breaks other edicts too, but those didn't effect us.) We had music and dancing like a typical Irish wedding. We had a tea ceremony like a typical Chinese wedding. We had vegan versions of traditional Chinese wedding banquet dishes, but a traditional European cake (French bakery not Irish.) There were lots of other little Irish and chinese things, but it would take an hour to list them.

We had it in a park surrounded by nature, b/c DH and I are birdwatchers.

[GSMama]

We were married in a non-religious ceremony on the beach in Jamaica with family and friends.

We always knew we weren't the kind of people for all the hoopla of a wedding at home and there was no way we could keep a wedding here in Canada small (my dad has a huge family). So we compromised by inviting everyone to Jamaica, knowing full well that not everyone would come . In the end all of the people we were close with were happy to make the trip and it was a wonderful week. It also accomplished having some of DH's family that might not have been able to attend the wedding be able to be there.

Looking back, there isn't a thing I'd change about it.

[Danelle78]

All our invitations were printed in English/German (DH did those himself). For the service, he brother and sister read the verses in German. We also sang hymn that were well known in Germany. It was beautiful and we had a great time.

[RainCoastMama]

All of 3 weeks later I can get enough time to post in my own dang thread

We had 2 days of wedding cuz we couldnt' squish everything into 1 day.

Day 1 was a Hindu ceremony at a temple, with DH (Japanese) and I in full traditional Indian clothing (red saree for mehendi for me, kurta suit for him). It was beautiful, lots of vibrant colours, and the Indian food afterwards (all vegetarian, no alcohol) was supremely yummy.

Day 2 was the Japanese Buddhist ceremony at a Buddhist temple. I wore a white wedding dress fashioned into a gauzy kimono coat over a slim, ivory sheath dress. I actually was inspired by princess Amidala from Star Wars We had a huge reception after with lots of sushi and Japanese food, and Indian food as well. Our favours were Indian chai put into a Japanese teacup. Place setting were old pre-WWII Japanese ads and Bollywood movie posters.

Good times

[mntnmom]

We avoided it all together!! My family is Protestant, DH's is Catholic. I am Pagan and he is agnostic. We eloped. A yr later we had an outdoor commitment ceremony for our families, with a UU minister. :LOL

I wish we had done something a little more exotic, but it kept the peace.

[Alcyone]

We didn't, really. We had a legal civil ceremony in Denmark, and a traditional big-dress/fancy-cake deal in America. I didn't like my wedding. I wanted to include Danish things but my mother kept insisting it was "my" wedding. In actuality it was hers, and a huge waste of my time.

[EdnaMarie]

We did it mainly according to DH's traditions although I wore a western wedding dress.

[emmasmommy]

There weren't too many big differences in Canadian weddings and Swedish weddings, but we mixed what we could. Our ceremony was a civil ceremony in all English in my parents' yard. We did mix traditions a bit at the reception though. We had our parents and grandparents (we only had one grandma each at the wedding) at the head table rather than the wedding party which is Swedish tradition, and I know we did more but I can't remember. I know that we compromised a lot on some things and what we ended up with wasn't really Swedish or Canadian, but just us! Some of dh's relatives did their toasts in Swedish with a "translator" - dh's cousin who was our MC.

[Cyann]

We had two weddings. (I'm a more-or-less Christian American; my husband is originally from India, and more-or-less Hindu.) The first was a typical American wedding, held at a lakeside place near our house. It was a sunny day in early November, yellow leaves were still on the trees, I wore a slinky white dress, it was perfect.

The second wedding was the following February, in India. We went to a famous temple city and had a typical (though much-shortened) southern-style Indian wedding at a traditional open-air wedding hall there. There were two different ceremonies on two different days. The timing of the actual wedding ceremony was astrologically determined, and I was just grateful that we drew a mid-morning slot rather than something like two in the morning like some people get! I had four different saris, including the traditional nine-yard-long red one; my husband had a yellow silk (dyed with turmeric) cloth like a wrap skirt. (I know the name of it, I'm just blanking. Arrgh!) The ceremonies were overwhelming. Musicians played (very loudly!), the smoke from the fire got in my eyes, I had no idea what was going on most of the time, but I loved it all. Before and after, we all got served the most fabulous south Indian vegetarian food, on banana leaves. Yum.

After everything was done, we went to the temple in town, then after that, we took a trip up a road of about fifty hair-raising switchbacks to the main temple at the top of the hill, and stood in line for a couple of hours to view the deity there. At the very last threshhold, I guess I didn't move quickly enough, and the attendant yanked me inside and almost off my feet. All the strangeness and newness of the last few days hit me at once, and as soon as we were outside again, I burst into tears! Luckily, my mother-in-law and my sister-in-law, who were with us, were very understanding, and kept telling me what an idiot that attendant was.

There was a reception a few days later back in Chennai, and I got to wear this huge voluminous turquoise skirt and blouse and at least a pound of matching jewelry.

[dessismama]

We did a traditional American wedding at the church where my husband grew up but we had programs with English, Bulgarian, and Chinese writing on them. We also used a Bulgarian fertility tradition and had an official Chinese tea ceremony where I got to serve tea to all the elders on both sides of DH's family.

[rrible]

I'm Indian, Hindu, and my husband comes from a non-practicing jewish/catholic blend family. Neither of us is religious at all. My 15 year old cousin said the theme of the wedding was "fusion". Because we weren't committed to any traditional ceremony in any pure form, we had a mixed ceremony that went something like this:

traditional western processional (bridesmaids, music, flower girl, etc). I wore a beige 2 piece lehnga dress made by an Indian designer that had a very western a-line shape.
had a family friend, a judge, "officiate", say a few words.
catholic aunt gave a short reading
jewish almost-rabbi best friend gave a jewish blessing
family friend lead a very shortened version of a traditional indian ceremony with the fire (usually takes about 2+ hours) and all. probably condensed to about 30 minutes.
judge helped us do vows, exchange rings, said a few words, kiss the bride...

all in all about an hour.

the reception was just one big party mostly western, but some indian music. we had an indian dance party 2 nights prior for all the indian guests and my husbands family and a dinner at an italian restaurant the night before for the rest of the out of town guests and wedding party.

it was fun but a lot of coordination to mix things up so much!

[Bad Mama Jama]

these stories are all so beautiful and it makes me all misty to hear you all share. how beautiful to incorporate bits of yourselves into your special days. this is reaally great to hear.

[Cyann]

Edit: Oops, I just noticed it posted after all!



[I got carried away the other day writing the whole thing out in more detail than anyone probably cares about, then lost it all when my son pushed the off button on the computer. Guess I was typing too long.

So here's the short version. My husband and I got married twice. First time was a traditional American ceremony near our house. Second time was a traditional Hindu ceremony in a temple town in southern India. The latter was overwhelming for me, but one of the best experiences of my life. I wouldn't trade either one for anything. Plus, it kept all the parents happy. ]

[iriaS]

DH and I grew up Catholic and we married the Catholic way, we picked Mexico we had a Spanish/Afrikaans ceremony, we didn't really combine cultures, we also had an Azeri translator for my maternal family who dont speak Spanish(even though almost all my family speaks Spanish).
It was lovely really, a beautiful reunion in the beach afterwards with delicious Afghan food, maybe that's the only Afghan thing that we had in our wedding.

[Kitsune6]

Originally Posted by GSMama

We were married in a non-religious ceremony on the beach in Jamaica with family and friends.

We always knew we weren't the kind of people for all the hoopla of a wedding at home and there was no way we could keep a wedding here in Canada small (my dad has a huge family). So we compromised by inviting everyone to Jamaica, knowing full well that not everyone would come . In the end all of the people we were close with were happy to make the trip and it was a wonderful week. It also accomplished having some of DH's family that might not have been able to attend the wedding be able to be there.

Looking back, there isn't a thing I'd change about it.

We did the same thing except we ended up with a catholic priest
We don't remember at all what he made us repeat but it didn't matter to us. we just wanted to be married without anyone around. We had a great reception at a local brewery when we got back. Weddingmoons are awesome!