Cultural differences

Sounds like fun! Will you bring in any cultural traditions from both into your wedding?

This made me laugh. Maybe she meant "why do the people who come on time sit up front"?
Idk.

I feel you girl. My FH's family has some pretty strong opinions and I keep saying "but my family is not Chinese" and hearing "but it will be seen as you ignoring our culture". It's hard to appease both sides. Take a deep breath, and talk with your FH and decide together what you will entertain other ideas on and what is staying how it is.

Asian families value time and punctuality but in Latino families time is a loose suggestion. My ex was Mexican and my FH is Guatemalan. We’ve also encountered issues with time in planning our wedding. We’ve had a total of 6 months to plan our wedding from Engagement to Married. FH feels like 6 months is a long time. For me it’s not that much but it was a compromise between a long and short engagement.

We are getting married at 3pm. The invitations will say 2pm. It’s our way of getting his family here on time. FH doesn’t even know what time we are actually getting married because I don’t want him to tell them about the hour leeway. His culture is known for being “fashionably late” or missing the ceremony and arriving on time for the party. In fact, it’s not seen as rude.

Another adjustment we are making for time is sending out invitations in waves. My family will get invitations sent 6-8 weeks before the wedding. FH’s family will get invitations 3 weeks before the wedding as their culture sees no reason to plan so far in advance. Usually invitations are a last minute thing. Also be aware that in latino culture a wedding is a big party for everyone. A lot of people don’t RSVP and by word of mouth some people invite friends or other people to come along to the reception. So make sure you talk to your FH and his family about head counts and things like that because depending on how traditional they are, you may have random people show up to party.

View Quoted Comment That’s funny because we have a saying in Vietnamese that literally translates to rubber band time so I’m not sure where one can make the assumption that Asians value time and punctuality. If anything, it’s more of the American culture that values this and find it appalling for people to not show up on time. I know plenty of Asians that laugh it off as no big deal. I haven’t been to a single asian wedding where guests arrived right on time. The important people were all there, but other guests were always late.

In Vietnam, it’s actually common practice to send out invites 2-3 weeks before the wedding like how you’re sending your FH’s invites out. Also common for people to not rsvp and just show up, but definitely depends on the crowd. Those who grew up in the US are aware of the etiquette that is commonly discussed here, but the older generation usually does not pay attention to it at all.

Good luck with the seating chart OP!

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Thanks so much for your advice. For what I know is that my family is very on time. May be 2 my uncles' families usually come late for family parties, but not for wedding. Their latest time was 30 min. I think it is because all of my uncles and aunts live here almost 30 years. They already adapted to the culture here.

View Quoted Comment I don’t think my last reply about what to say to your SIL went through. Welp.

Maybe you can tell her that’s you don’t want to disturb the people who came on time. It would be easier for people who are planning to come later to be seated further away so they don’t have to go through the crowd of people, especially if you’re in the middle of your program. I would spin it as a convenience to the people who are coming late (they can be seated right away, they won’t miss courses (if you’re serving courses and serving from front to back).


As for why people in front need to be on time: they’re the most important to you and your FH, so you would like to make sure that you get to share everything with them. It would mean the world to you guys that they are there from the beginning.

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Thanks for your advice. We had a hard time to ask everyone from my FH side to RSVP to us. A week after the RSVP date, there were only 2 families RSVP for us to email. So my FH and his mother had to call. People started texting us if they come or not. But they added people without asking us. There are so many generations from his mom family. But we cannot accommodate all so we decided to invite only aunts, uncles and cousins. We did not invite the kids of the cousins or the kids of that cousin's kid. But guest what, they still added all of them when RSVP. We were so frustrated after seeing that. At the same time, we cannot do anything because his mother got really upset with us. She thinks that is so disrespectful to her family when we say no to them after they added people. She said it is not usual for Mexican culture. For Mexican culture, you have to prepare extra food for people to come to your wedding. People don't have to RSVP. They can come whenever they want and you should have food to serve them anytime on your wedding day. May be, it is cultural thing, but somehow I do not think it is suitable if we live in the US. We have to pay for every single one that comes to our wedding. And the venue need head counts for catering. There are certain time to serve dinner. I am really stressed now. My wedding is coming in less than 3 weeks.

Yikes! While I appreciate and respect cultural differences, it's a two way street. Maybe point this out to your FMIL? "I understand and respect what you are telling me about Mexican culture, but what about my culture?" It's not fair for her to insist you respect her culture, while completely ignoring yours (and common wedding etiquette).