Incorporating your culture into your wedding???

I feel your pain! My FH is Nigerian and I'm creole plus we live in Oklahoma so it is a struggle! We tried to incorporate food from our culture during the reception but it was too much of a struggle. We decided to save the festivities for our Nigerian engagement. We will will traditional attire for both the engagement and wedding.

@Millie I have a friend in Tulsa who is also Nigerian! I love it when I see pics of them in traditional dresses etc.

I am half Arab, so the whole theme has taken on a bit if an Arabian twist. I haven't decided if I will be doing any henna yet though. And my FH (along with the white side half of me..lol) is Irish, so we may incorporate a handfasting into the actual ceremony and there will be whiskey a plenty

I get a good number of Latino clients who ask for cultural elements including Spanish language be included int their ceremonies. Check your local facebook wedding groups and talk with your officiant. Best wishes!

Ours wasnt too difficult to involve! I'm a mix of French, Lebanese, and Egyptian so we had a belly dancer and H is Polish so we had some Polish pastries and food during dinner. Good luck!

I am Mexican and my H is from NY. We did the horah since he is Jewish. We had a taco station. Gave tequila shots as favors. Our cake had both of our flags -Mexico and USA. We also had a Mariachi band for the cocktail hour and ceremony. We gave a maraca too, our guests were shaking them when we kissed. My Husband also broke the glass. -It was not difficult lol. Fun Fiesta. OP, nice dress. I went to a Chinese wedding once. Fun.

I am chinese and FH is Salvadorian. I am also doing tea ceremony in the morning too. I got mine dress from taobao website (Chinese combine version of Etsy & Amazon). During our western ceremony, we will do a lasso ceremony.

Ps. If you want I can give you the store name I bought my dress from

Sounds really nice! We are having Sri Lankan drummers walk us into the reception and we're putting Sri Lankan wedding cake at each place setting. Also mine and (Australian) FH's mum will wear sari's which is lovely

Hawaiian living in the south with this exact problem!!!!

Can't ask guests to spend thousands on tickets and hotel so wedding has to be local.

Shipping my fav flowers will cost a fortune.

No beach nearby for dream ceremony.

Probably no caterers around who can make traditional food.

So discouraged right now.

We will be incorporating Chinese traditions in our wedding as well. I'm fortunate to be in NYC so we have The food and most everything. I will be buying disposable cups for the tea ceremony from Amazon. FH has a large family so we'd either be washing the cups of a nice tea set pretty frequently or just sharing them, which is not preferable.

Here's a picture below:

I have just started planning so I am not sure what we will do but it is important to me and he understands, which makes it easier.

We're doing tea ceremony too but I'm going to wear a qipao style dress instead. I got mine from amazon for $50. Check Chinatown! I'm sure they have something there..

We just did our family trees with the help of ancestry.com. We have discovered so much about our heritage that we didn't know. We plan on having a giant poster of the trees at the reception so the rest of the family can learn too. We are tossing around the idea of having a our entrees reflect our different backgrounds. And possibly hiring a bagpiper! We didn't know, but he's got irish and english and I'm Scottish and welsh. I think it would be a fun surprise for our family.

I unfortunately was only able to incorporate dance and music in to my wedding . Wish I could have included the food and parts of the marriage ceremony , but that's hard at a DW in Mexico .

For my son and daughter in law's wedding I made a program that had all the Jewish ceremony and reception traditions listed and translated into Chinese (Mandarin) for her family and friends that came over from China. She danced with her dad to a Chinese song that was special to him. The favors they gave out were a set of stainless steel chopsticks and a fork with their names and date on them. East meets west. A few months later we went to China for a huge wedding where they had the tea ceremony and other traditional Chinese wedding things. (They also got married and live in Orlando)

I love all these ideas; we've done many weddings with cultural and heritage elements included. The tea ceremony and red dress are very popular; one of my Chinese couples had a lion dance at the cocktail hour. We've done a lot of crownings and cord/veil/coin ceremonies, handfastings and broom jump (in both Celtic and African American context).

@A, I would ask your caterer; you're in March, they may be able to work with you, and I see orchids all the time; they can't be that cost prohibitive. Maybe your DJ can find some traditional music, and I'm sure there are readings that can be incorporated. I did wedding with a Hawaiian wedding a few years ago; they exchanged leis and I talked about the significance. It was lovely.

The caterer is going to make some island food as appetizers, I will be saying the "to have and to hold" vows in my native language, and my mom and I are dancing to a song in our language.

Wish we did more. DH’s family is Irish and we got married in a typical Irish-Catholic Boston Church, DJ played some Irish music. My family is from Portugal, but the main way we honored that was through the style of my dress and veil.

FH is Chinese-American, but his parents haven't said anything about a tea ceremony and I don't know where to begin with doing it. I am surprising FH and his family with a Lion Dance group and were going to do the Tarantalla to acknowledge my Italian background. Our favors will be sealed with a Double-Happiness wax seal. I will wear a custom qipao to the rehearsal dinner. (Really because they are pretty and I wanted one.)

I am wraping my bouquet grip in my clan's tartan and I will be walking down the aisle to a distinctively Celtic song. I tried to get my FH to agree to kilts (I always love a formal kilt!) but he was a no-go.

Really just small touches for us. I've Celtic heritage, and we'll be doing a handfasting, and using a few Irish songs during the Dance. FH is Native American, Mexican and Spanish, and (nonpracticing) Jewish. We'll be serving tacos and possibly breaking a glass.