If the 2010 Hollywood blockbuster, “Our
Family Wedding” is anything to go by, Latino weddings stick to certain
traditions that they will never compromise for any reason. If you are invited
to a Latino wedding for the first time, there are certain situations you must
be prepared to encounter at the wedding ceremony.
You should expect a Latino wedding to
take place in a catholic church as Latinos always display their catholic
affiliation with pride. The bride and groom will most definitely receive gold
coins supposedly for nuptial good luck and the most important occurrence to
expect is that there will be an endless list of extended family members in
attendance. From the mother’s side, the father’s side, friends, neighbors,
cousins and even acquaintances that have been around for so long they have come
to be known as family.
Latino weddings happen all night so
expect the cocktail for the reception to start around 7 p.m. while dinner will
probably commence around 11:00 p.m. The energetic Latino dance begins at
midnight where everyone present whether young or old is expected to slug it out
on the dance floor for almost the whole night. This is usually followed by the
Cotillón; the most entertaining part of the wedding where the bride and groom reappear
at the reception with costumes, glow sticks, hats, beaded necklaces, sunglasses
and other random souvenirs that everyone puts on to take photographs.
The period of celebratory dance marks
a close similarity between Latino weddings and Nigerian weddings because the couple
is encouraged to dance so intensely to Latino music (a must in Latino weddings)
while guests celebrate them with cash, in traditional Latino weddings, the
guests approaches the bride and groom pinning money to the bride's dress.
Another distinction in Latino wedding
is that rather than a bouquet, everyone circles the wedding cake to pull a
ribbon out from it. One of the ribbons will have a ring attached to the end of
it and whoever is the lucky winner that pulls out that special ribbon is next
to get married, isn’t this quite interesting?
Celebration continues nonstop even
after the bride and groom have left the reception.
Photo credit: serendipity studio and Jaco Photo