Some Customs Tailoring
When Lisa Nagatani Haack and her husband, John, decided to get married, they knew they didn’t want the standard I-now-pronounce-you-husband-and-wife wedding. Besides writing special vows, they found a way to incorporate Lisa’s Japanese heritage into the service: a traditional sake ceremony signifying the couple’s union.
“We thought we’d do something to signify my culture, and my mother suggested this,” says the 30-year-old Pasadena pianist. “It was a personal thing for me, and my husband was all for it, and my family thought it was really touching.”
The Haacks are among a growing group of brides and grooms from different cultures who are changing the rules of traditional Western weddings by reflecting their heritage in everything from flowers and clothes to food and invitations. Lacking advice from today’s etiquette books, it’s up to the couple and their families, with help from wedding planners or officiants, to navigate this unchartered nuptial territory. And the pros are getting savvy. Bridal salons can whip up special gowns, invitation designers can obtain indigenous papers, and officiants are becoming well versed in foreign customs.
Robert A. Ringler of Bel-Air Wedding Ceremonies has a library devoted to multicultural wedding traditions. “I try to let the couple know that it’s OK to bring something from their culture into the ceremony,” the nondenominational minister and former UCLA dean says. “I tell them, ‘Let’s do something reflective of who you are.’ . . . I threw my etiquette books away. I found them inhibiting.”
L.A. wedding consultant Frankie Berger recommends researching not only cultural traditions but also how the bride’s and groom’s families have interpreted those traditions.
“You really have to go back and know what the family history is,” she says. “Did they follow traditional holidays? Attend traditional weddings? What were the backgrounds of those traditions? What was it about those weddings that were special? The couples say, ‘I never thought about that, but my grandmother would really appreciate it.’ ”
Blending traditions doesn’t have to be such a monumental undertaking, Berger adds, “if the families have accepted the marriage--that’s the No. 1 thing. I tell my clients that we need to talk with their families to see what things are important to them. We don’t want to offend anyone in either family.”
Her sister-in-law’s recent wedding in Hawaii was a perfect blending of cultures: The bride was Japanese and Jewish and reared in Hawaii, the groom was an American Episcopalian. His father, a minister, performed the ceremony, reciting prayers in English and Hebrew, and the groom’s sister read a poem in Japanese.
The bride wore a lei and fashioned a wedding gown out of a kimono, using leftover material for the groom’s cummerbund and bow tie. Even the food fit in: hors d’oeuvres included sushi and mini bagels with lox and cream cheese.
Says Berger: “There wasn’t a dry eye in the house.”
But evoking cultural heritages shouldn’t overwhelm an event, says party planner Sharon Sacks of Reseda-based Sacks Productions. Adding touches such as ethnic music or wedding rituals are fine, but guests shouldn’t feel as if they’ve been dropped on another planet.
“The feeling of the wedding should be one of romance and love,” she says, “and not just the recognition of two cultures. You have to think about what it is your guests would be most comfortable with. I believe the night should have something for everyone, but most of all it’s a marriage, and not about making a statement about the cultures.”
“Practical” and “considerate”--those are the most important words in planning a not-by-the-book wedding, says a woman who did write the book: “The Amy Vanderbilt Complete Book of Etiquette” (Doubleday, 1995).
Nancy Tuckerman (who co-authored with Nancy Dunnan) says, “As long as it’s in good taste, I can’t think of any rules that can’t be gotten around. I do think it’s very important for the bride and groom to talk about what kind of wedding they want before the last minute. If his family is from Italy they might want to give money as a wedding gift. That’s OK, as long as everybody knows what’s going on.”
*
Deirdre Imershein admits that she “assumed a lot” when she and fiance Joseph Haj decided to marry. Being Jewish, she figured they’d have a chuppah (the wedding canopy) at their upcoming July wedding and that he would break the glass.
As a Catholic Palestinian American, Haj didn’t make those assumptions.
But so far, plans have gone quite smoothly. After “a lot of discussion” among the two 32-year-old L.A. actors, their in-laws, and the priest and rabbi who will officiate, they’ve decided on a number of things: There will be a chuppah, bride and groom will break the glass together, and Haj’s mother will bake Middle Eastern pastries for the reception.
“At my fiance’s brother’s wedding,” Imershein recalls, “there was a candle dance done with the bride and the mothers. We’re doing that too. I’m becoming a member of this family, so why wouldn’t I embrace the things that make my fiance and his family happy?”
Multicultural weddings are becoming so commonplace that it’s not difficult to find a caterer adept at Kenyan cuisine, a band to play romantic Spanish music, or a florist to provide exotic blooms.
At the Beverly Hills bridal salon Renee Strauss for the Bride, designers consult an in-house library to guide them through the making of ethnic wedding gowns.
“I did a wedding where the bride wore a kimono over her wedding dress,” Strauss recalls. “She took off the kimono and then attached a train to the dress. Sometimes a bride also needs several dresses for different ceremonies. One Indonesian bride had three dresses, one of which was a hand-embroidered gold gown.”
Even invitations can say something about the couple’s cultures. Marc Friedland of the L.A. graphic design firm Creative Intelligence says paper from Egypt, Asia or other countries can reflect someone’s homeland. He did one invitation that included a poem in Finnish. Another took sayings from the Tao and used Chinese calligraphy. “Earthy” paper with an embossed floral design complemented an outdoor Hawaiian ceremony.
“The diversity in multicultural weddings,” Friedland says, “is reflected in the styles and materials being used. It means that you no longer have to do black and ecru invitations. A multicultural wedding represents individuality and love that doesn’t have boundaries.”
