Any bilingual weddings?

Yay!! I had a bilingual wedding! We did bilingual invites for our Spanish speaking guests and both for our guests who are fluently bilingual.

We only had four guests that spoke only a few words of English so we got the script from our ceremony sent directly to a translator to translate to Spanish. Our translator sent it directly to our graphic designer who printed small books for them and we placed them on their seats.

We had our programs in both english and spanish. We had all of our signs in both English and Spanish.

We had so many guests tell us how sweet it was to make it inclusive for everyone. His mother cried when she saw the script book and told me it was going on her coffee table back home.

Here's an example of a proof for one of our signs

Thank you!! I'm definitely taking some of your ideas and applying them!

We are doing a Russian and English wedding. So far we have a Russian DJ who will also translate. Love the idea of menus in both languages!

@MrsBdeG The way you incorporated the languages is so lovely! I'm sure they hugely appreciated this!

We do a lot of bilingual weddings; I have a Spanish speaking officiant and an ASL interpreter. When we can't accommodate a couple with our own people, we'll often recommend that they have the script translated, at least for their parents, and we'll invite a native speaker from the family to join us for the opening reading, the greeting and the vows.

One thing I would NOT recommend (having done it only once) is having the entire ceremony is both languages. First, it's endless, and it's very distracting for both audiences to keep track of what is going on after large chunks of spoken text in a language that they don't understand.

I went to a bilingual Catholic mass and it lasted FOREVER!

What was originally in Latin stayed in Latin. Lyrics for the hymns were in the program in both English and Spanish, so all guests could sing at the same time.

Other than that, there was a priest who read a paragraph in English and then another in Spanish. Vows were repeated in both languages, etc.

I studied Latin and Spanish in school, and started cantoring liturgies at age 12, so I didn't really mind it (wish I had a seat cushion, though); other guest were totally zoned-out (semi-delirious).

We had a few guests that didn't speak much English. Instead of doing everything bilingual, we did separate invitations for those guests and then had H's Dad do a reading in his native language right before we did the vows. It was perfect.

I tried so hard to find a Portuguese DJ for our wedding but the one I wanted was booked our ceremony will be super short (like 10-15 minutes short) so we're just going to do that in English. I'll say a few words to thank my family in Portuguese at the reception!

I went to a wedding once where the DJ said everything in English and in Polish. He even alternated between songs in English and Polish

I've been to weddings where a good mix of music played was from another culture (the ones I've been to specifically were Brazilian and Columbian). I've also been to one wedding where her whole family was white/English speakers and his was mostly from Mexico/Spanish speakers, and they did their wedding in a Zen garden and incorporated a lot of Buddhism and oriental stuff, because that is what was meaningful for them. Then at the reception it was a blend of small town US and Mexican cultures.

I'm officiating one this afternoon. I e-mailed the ceremony to a member of the family who translated it and will stand beside me during the ceremony. I'll read a sentence in English and s/he will read it in French. Since my ceremonies are usually only about 10 minutes, it won't take too long to read it in two languages.

@MrsBdeG I love these ideas, thank you!

I plan to have at least our vows in both English and Spanish, and our program probably will be as well. There will definitely be lots of bachata and salsa during the reception, too.

We'll incorporate some Spanish since some of my FH's family only speaks Spanish, including FMIL. Printed materials, including invitations, will be bilingual. We'll also likely have readings and announcements in English and Spanish.

My side speaks Spanish or Hindi. His Vietnamese and/or Cantonese ... some French lol.

We are sticking to English and hoping for the absolute best.

Bilingual I think is definitely feasible.

We didn't do much during the ceremony - but we focused on the reception having some bilingual aspects.

We had a bilingual toast by DH's father. They are Russian, and although his family speaks English - most are more comfortable with Russian.

FIL spoke in Russian, and DH's uncle translated into English for everyone else.

We also had a bunch of Russian music (Ok, like 3 or 4 songs) so his family felt very included and they danced up a storm during those songs - and even though I hated the Russian music - our non-Russian guests seemed to enjoy to quick look into a different culture too. Seeing my guests and his guests enjoy together made me actually almost like the music myself.

@Linds We had bilingual toasts too! The BM is a neurolinguist who taught English at a university for years. He did a mix of English and Spanish for his toast and it was amazing!

@MrsBtoBe Np! We had a lot of bachata and salsa at our wedding too! I had to have some reggaeton and Latin pop too. We worked with a bilingual graphic artist for all of our signs and it was so great because she was diligent about spelling, accent marks, and tildas.

I love this! I think having a touch of each is beautiful, but as Celia said, an entire ceremony might be too long. We had our best friends (she is American, he is South African) do a reading in both languages, but the rest was in English. However, my husband's family all speaks English as well as Afrikaans. Could you possibly incorporate a wedding tradition from Japan as well. It's so beautiful when couples honor each other's heritage like that.