As with any family gathering, weddings are an opportunity to celebrate your culture. Read on to learn about making your family’s culture part of the big day.
Every wedding ceremony is unique and special. Many couples incorporate their personalities, passions, and even careers into their big day. Others look to their family history, culture, and even living relatives and seek to celebrate their culture as part of their wedding! Here are a few tips on how to honor your family culture during your wedding ceremony, from adding small touches to incorporating significant aspects.
Start With the Ambiance
Your wedding’s ambiance is typically the most subtle aspect. The color of flowers, the style of dishware, and the music you play all help create the experience. Altering these aspects of the ambiance to reflect your family’s culture and heritage is an instant way to pay homage to the loved ones who came before you.
Incorporate Cultural Traditions
Partnerships and the ceremonies that signify and celebrate them have taken place in every culture across the globe. Almost every culture has a unique set of wedding traditions, so if you’re planning tohonor your family culture during your wedding, look to these traditions as a place to start.
A popular wedding tradition in Germany, for example, asks friends and family to break porcelain dishes the night before the wedding (in one spot together). Then, the bride and groom work together to clean it and use teamwork for the first time in their marriage! Another way to incorporate cultural traditions is to learn any dances unique to your culture’s traditional wedding ceremonies.
Traditions like these are familiar for older guests of the culture and a fun way to involve wedding guests in the ceremony.
Add Meaningful Accessories
Another way to acknowledge your heritage is to bring accessories into the ceremony that adorn the bride, groom, or family. Even small fashion choices can prove deeply meaningful and comforting to you and your family.
For example, families with Hawaiian heritage might bring lei to the ceremony, as these stunning garlands play a key role in Hawaiian weddings alongside many other ceremonies. Haku head lei are an especially popular option for brides. The bride and groom can also nod to any Armenian heritage by incorporating the traditional color scheme of red for the bride, symbolizing happiness and family, and green for the groom, symbolizing fertility. While these colors used to comprise the entire outfit, small ribbons can still serve as an important acknowledgment of your family’s culture.
Speaking with friends and family is the best way to discover, explore, and decide on the traditions and décor you want to include in your wedding. Multicultural weddings are undoubtedly a beautiful, exciting alternative for many families looking to keep their family history alive and well.
