being ethnic?

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This is a thread that was started in our old BlissWeddings.com forums on 6/24/05. Feel free to add your comments by pressing Post Reply.

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posted by roseprincess

1. are you part of a multi-ethnic couple? what ethnic traditions are/were part of your wedding celebration?

2. are you in a bi-racial couple?

I just came across an article on MSNBC about caketoppers that made me wonder... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7969694/page/2/

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posted by cru5h

Well, I'll never be sure what ethnicity I am for sure, thanks to my paternal grandmother keeping stuff from me. Evil ol' lady. But I know that she's from Canada. My present real last name is so oogabooga tribal sounding I have to say that it's Indian, like maybe a Canadian Indian? But these other people in Canada I contacted say it's some kind of Russian...that would explain my paleness.

My mom side is a mishmosh and adding them all together makes me a "white" American. I grew up in South Florida and read, write, understand Spanish, speak it alright but not great. This makes me Cuban by association LOL.

Richy's 100% Puerto Rican. He doesn't really have a close link to his ethnicity since his mom is so far away and his dad isn't into being PR very much. So he's not stuck on any ethnic traditions for our wedding.

And you know me... not into traditions hehe.

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posted by clairon13

rickey and i are both mutts thru-and-thru.. he is german/irish, and i am scotch-irish/cherokee indian, but only like 1/16. i only have the cheekbones, too, everything else is pure irish--pale, freckly skin, etc. i think you can see the germanic side of rickey, but he doesn't claim it at all. since we both love all things celtic, we do want to have something that incorporates that; i have thought of getting him a celtic wedding band, but still don't know. the actual thing that we will be going ethnic as far as wedding traditions go, is rickey is practically a mexican by osmosis. he has "un corrazon mexicano" for sure... all his best friends are mexican, and he has learned lots of neat traditions; the one we will be incorporating (perhaps other latin american couples do this?) is assigning the roles of "padrinos", but only in the god-parent sense, not the kind that buy everything from the liquor to the rings to the food... this is a couple chosen by the newlyweds to be their spiritual mentor along w/ other implications. anyway, it is a beautiful tradition, and we are going to honor that couple in our ceremony. so, we have mutt-american heritage, and are honoring a mexican tradition! lol

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posted by roseprincess

I'm so glad you guys shared, I really hope others will too!

I've mentioned what we did before but I'll do so again for the sake of contributing to my own thread. DH comes from an Irish-American father and a Scottish American mother (his adoptive parents, we know nothing about the biological ones). I'm 100% Puerto Rican. For our wedding I wanted to incorporate both our families' heritage and honor them, so I read up as much as I could. I'm not into superstition, so anything that smacked of that was quickly disqualified. Same goes for any tradition whose meaning or origin was unknown. For example, there's a PR tradition of having a doll dressed like a bride sitting at the Head Table with the couple... WTF? That was too "Bride of Chucky" for me! eeeew!

So, in order to honor my PR/Hispanic heritage, we had a married couple who are close friends be our "padrinos", the Godparents of our marriage (with no financial obligation). She read our Scripture selection and he the poem during our ceremony. Their friendship and spiritual support of us is priceless. We also had the exchange of 13 coins, called arras, during the ceremony. A hard cider toast (instead of sparkling wine or champagne) and lots of Salsa music and Boleros played during the reception!

For the Irish side, I wish could've done more, they have such neat traditions. I came across so many things I liked. For example, I had hoped to have either a blueish dress or one embroidered with blue crystals. Then I read that blue used to be the traditional color for brides in Ireland. We wanted a country garden wedding and then I came across a slew of material about Celts and their love for having weddings celebrated outdoors because of their connection to nature. In the end, it wasn't possible to do it all, but we did have a country garden wedding with a handfasting, a processional & recessional of Irish music (from a CD called The Vow) a lots of roses. Our rings look like they have a Celtic knot design and will eventually be engraved with a Celtic phrase affirming our love. If I hadn't had my heart set forever on toasting with hard cider, we would've done so with Mead (honey-wine), which I love almost as much. I later also found out that lamb was a traditional food to serve at Irish weddings; we served roast lamb & poached salmon.

Now to those multi-ethnic B&G caketoppers... I guess people still do that kind of topper? It's funny, I never thought to do them because the only way I would've liked a pair of those is if we'd commissioned someone to make them to look just like us. I looked at their "Latino" bride (both companies) and she didn't look like me. But the "White" brides looked pretty insipid to me, so did the "White" grooms. It makes me wonder what my baby will answer when he has to fill out one of those forms somewhere that ask what your ethnic background is: will he check "White, non-Hispanic" or "Hispanic"? or will he try to check both? When will they allow people to check off more than one?

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posted by feb-bride


I am half Portuguese and half "human mutt" (my last name is Scottish, so I know I have at least some Scottish blood in me). My husband is half Japanese and half "Pilgrim" (his father is a member of the Mayflower Society and can directly trace his heritage back to the Mayflower).

Our ethnicities had no impact on our wedding ceremony. We didn't incorporate anything from the Portuguese or Japanese cultures into our wedding.

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posted by gymrat

Our wedding did not have any ethnic traditions.

I am from what I have heard (I wish I knew for sure as some are kind of ify)...

German, Dutch, Scottish/Irish, Portuguese, Italian, and Indian

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posted by clairon13

rose-- did you guys have a program? if so, did you explain to the "audience" who your padrinos were and what the spanish custom was? (i still dont know if we are doing programs, but their role is one i would like acknowledged at large, so people know how huge their support of us is)

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posted by maroki13

I am a mix of everything, mostly Western European...German, French, Scandinavian. My last name is French. My FH is a quarter Italian, a quarter Indonesian, a quarter Philippino, and a quarter mutt...Hispanic, Dutch, and I'm not sure what else. I am pretty white but FH has slightly darker skin. We aren't including any ethnic traditions in our wedding.

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posted by munchkin

I am 100% Irish. Parents are Irish, grandparents are Irish, great grandparents are Irish...and so on and so forth. DJ is half Chinese and half Irish.
We will not be incorporating any Chinese traditions in our wedding, but many Irish ones. We are getting married outside, our wedding bands are going to have some sort of Celtic knotting in them, and some of our programs will be in Gaelic. At this point that's all we have planned, but there are still two more years to go. I am very connected to my heritage and so it will be a very important part of our ceremony.

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posted by roseprincess

I'm kinda surprised that it's only three of us so far... I was hoping that wynelle would tell us what she did -- I remember reading in another thread that she wore her clan tartan sash as a bride, which I think must've been beautiful; are you thinking of doing that munchkin?

A wedding that I thought was very meaningful was that of my son's 3rd grade teacher. She is Vietnamese and chose to get married out on a riverfront deck (I can't remember the symbolism of that now) and they hung banners in bright fuschia and orange and red all along the ceremony area. They did a sand ceremony & had their mothers and WP plant bamboo stalks in one planter pot for good fortune and longevity. Their favors were small glass vases w/ three stalks of bamboo and a note thanking the guest, as well as instructions on how to care for the plant. It was a lovely way to pay tribute to her heritage.

clairon, I was planning to email you soon but to answer your question about the padrinos, only a handful of people attending our wedding didn't know this couple. She hosted my bridal and baby showers at her home, and her DH was the one who rounded up the men in order for my Honey to have some sort of bachelor party. They were invited to the RD. We did not have a program at our wedding, it was one of the things I didn't find time to do!

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posted by clairon13

rose.. thanks for replying.... since i'm diy-ing, i might not have the time either, but rickey is a comp. nut, so he will prolly love to do it anyway. not too many people on r's side know who my spiritual parents are (the ones i told you about), but they are all the ones who've grown up w/ rickey and know his love of all things mexico, so they'd at least "get" why we're honoring the couple. were there other ways you incorporated your padrinos at your wedding other than the readings? did they wear bout/coursages? oh, and was your hard cider sidral? they use that in mexican weddings as well. rickey doesn't like the catholic-inspired use of the coins, but we have considered using a flower lasso as my spiritual dad prays for us.. what do you think?
thanks!!!

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posted by wynelle

Sorry, I must have been napping. I am of Scots heritage (Father's family arrived in the late 1700s in North Carolina, made their way to Georgia in the early 1800s); DH is Irish- his grandparents met in NYC as Irish immigrants. We did some traditional and some non-traditional Celtic/Gaelic things. We had two sets of invitations. In the "olden" days, clans did things in a minimum of three days- a gathering of the clans, the celebration, and the parting. Invitations to family and close friends included those three things- the rehersal dinner, the actual wedding and the morning after brunch. We had about 40 people for that. There were about 175 people at the actual wedding and reception. I had my clan plaid, which I wore, as did my daughter and son. I had my husband's woven for him and his daughters, sisters and brother. I had fun searching the antique malls for bar pins set with stones that matched the plaids. Mine had emeralds, my daughter's had a sapphire, his side had peridot. (Men wore cummerbunds/ties). I also had pieces of the tartans wrapped around our bouquets. I carried brick roses, as did my daughter. His daughters/sister carried dark pink with stephanotis. (His plaid is dark pink, a turquoise, yellow and white- Irish plaids are much lighter than Scots.) Hand-made Unity Candle with a Celtic Cross, our names, the wedding date, and our four children's names. The children (ages 22-32) lit the two side tapers. During the service, our pastor called our children by name- asked if they blessed and supported the union of the families. The congregation was also asked to acknowledge their blessings. The recessional was to Scotland the Brave. At the reception, he pinned a plaid in his tartan on my shoulder, so I had the clan I was born to, and the clan I married in to. Our reception was in a historic house, with tables around the deep wrap-around porch, and well as dancing inside. I found a webpage that made hand-painted holders for votive candels-- but when lit, the design appeared and the background faded- and I had a dozen with various Celtic designs from the Book of Kells. When we did the first dance, we started with "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling," then my son and his daughter cut in, then my daughter and his brother, then my brother and his sister, as the band (6 piece Celtic group) sequed into other traditional pieces, then when when DH and I finally got back together, it cut back into "Irish Eyes," and everyone was crying. Then the men all tried to show that they could do Irish step dancing! LOL! Then my son did a Scottish sword dance/fling (he could- my exhusband was also Scots, played the bagpipes, etc) and we all stayed too late. Gathered the next morning to send everyone off to home and we left for Ireland.

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posted by CupieJen

Wow Wynelle...do you have any photos you can post? sounds wonderful!!!

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posted by roseprincess

OMG!!! Helloooo, I'd like to see a few pictures of that too, I almost cried reading it. It sounds like it was so beautiful, wynelle! I love to look at all those clan tartans, I hope to figure out a way to get the ones for DH's side someday for our kids. Thank you for sharing!