Diverse Clients & Unique Situations
Here at Yes And? Weddings and Events, we are committed to serving every client with enthusiasm, empathy, patience, and understanding. Please read on to learn more about some of the unique situations presented by Elena and Aidan's upcoming nuptials.
Diverse Families
Blending of Cultures
Aidan and Elena’s families come from different cultural backgrounds. Aidan’s family comes from a Celtic background and Elena’s family immigrated to the U.S. from Mexico several decades ago. The couple wants to honor traditions from both sides during their intimate ceremony.
To honor the Celtic/Irish heritage from Aidan’s side of the family, the couple will perform a traditional handfasting ceremony during the elopement. The well-known phrase "tying the knot" may originate from the Irish tradition of the handfasting ritual during weddings. The ritual calls for the officiant to bind the marrying couple's hands together while reciting vows of commitment, quite literally "fasting" or fastening them together for life. This visual representation of the combining of two lives into one.
Photo by Signature Photography via One Fab Day
The couple plans to honor the Mexican heritage of Elena and her family by asking loved ones to act as madrinas and padrinos during the elopement ceremony. Similar in concept to godparents at a baptism, this allows the marrying couple to involve more loved ones in the commitment ceremony. It is not uncommon for these padrinos to be selected by parents when a child is very young, in case anything should happen to them. For this reason, madrinas and padrinos are often married couples that have seen the young people grow up over time.
During weddings, padrinos and madrinas often contribute in some way to the wedding costs. Traditionally, they will also purchase significant items that are used during the Catholic wedding ceremony. While Elena and Aidan will not be including this aspect of the tradition (see below), they still want to honor the guidance of loved ones within their ceremony.
Elena and Aidan are honored to share that their padrinos will be:
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Elena’s Tía Marleni and Tío Marcos Galindo (married 23 years)
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Close family friends to the O’Neils: Debbie and Frank Mercurio (married 29 years)
Religious Differences
While both the bride and groom were raised Catholic, neither of them are practicing. They have received varying degrees of pressure from both sides of their families to get married via a traditional Catholic mass inside a church. The couple was not willing to enter into their lifelong commitment in a manner that felt inauthentic to their personhood.
In an effort to keep the peace and be respectful of their family members’ beliefs, however, they have agreed to incorporate some Catholic features into their elopement ceremony. The couple will also be incorporating elements of their own interests and spiritual practices into the ceremony space and content.
To honor Elena’s current spiritual practice of choice, each guest at the small elopement ceremony will be given a small crystal to carry on their person. The crystals (and their significance/uses) will include rose quartz (love), amethyst (protection and stress relief), aventurine (trust and honesty), and moonstone (anti-negativity).
Photo by Edz Norton on Unsplash
The mothers of the couple will be invited to say the Lord’s Prayer during the ceremony. Elena’s mother Maria will say the prayer in Spanish, followed by Aidan’s mother Margaret in English. To further appease the Catholic contingent in attendance, the couple will have Tía Marleni read 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 (“Love is patient, love is kind…”).
Other readings will reflect the couple’s love of nature (Joy Harjo’s poem “Praise the Rain”), Elena’s passion for English (William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116: “Let me not to the marriage of true minds”), and Aidan’s love for the hilarious and absurd (the “mawage” speech from The Princess Bride). These will be performed by close friends of the couple.
