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I'm going down a similar path. My fiance is Puerto Rican & i'm Italian... we are following a theme of "the best of both worlds". To incorporate our nationalities during the cocktail hour we are having "stations". Along with the hot antipast and all the delicious italian food we are having a "latin" station. My fiance is a chef and is working closely with the chef at our reception to make it more "home-made". We are also incorporating some spanish dances and music... and at the church having a reading done in spanish.
good luck! 
Hi,
My fiance is Colombian too! I have been working with my future mother in law on a lot of the Colombian traditions, there don't seem to be too many that are specifically Colombian. One that is done during the ceremony, which I'm sure you can do in any faith is The Candle Ceremony. Once the rings have been exchanged the bride and groom each light a candle symbolizing the life of each one. Together they light another candle and put out the original candles, leaving only one burning strongly. The single bright candle symbolizes that the newly married couple are the same body and that they’re going to spend the rest of their lives together. They also have exchaning of the coins between the bride and groom, which symbolizes taking care of eachother financially.
Another idea is to maybe incorporate Colombian desserts into the reception like obleas or incorporating arequipe into your dessert. Also, you can have aguardiente as a drink at your wedding.
good luck!
Boriqua in the house right here! I think his family will be pretty flexible with traditions. Celebrations are pretty universal. So as long as you have music, dancing, and good spirits you will be fine! The Puerto Rican weddings I have attended didn't have over the top ingrained traditions incoporated into them. I, myself, am only doing one random thing which is bringing a bunch of Puerto Rican instruments to have my family bang away on during a Spanish dance for them to use. (But I think this is more my personal family's tradition- making some noise!) So long as they are having a good time is all that matters to me.... we are also having two guitarists to provide spanish background music during the ceremony and cocktail hour.
Hi. I'm actually a Colombian marrying a Puerto Rican!
Music is our most important cultural aspect in our wedding. Our dj will be playing lots of salsa and cumbias and vallenatos. Perhaps you could incorporate certain foods into your wedding? Appetizers would be easy like empanadas, papas rellenas. Colombians also like their "aguardiente" for parties so that also.
my FI is colombian! I asked him if there were any traditions he wanted to incorporate. He told me that after the I-dos the grooms lassos the bride. I looked at him with a slight panic, and he starting laughing- it was a complete joke. Anyway, WMforever's suggestion of aguardiente would probably be a big hit!
I am Puerto Rican while my FI is my Gringo... As WMForever had mentioned, music is our most important culture aspect of our wedding. Our DJ will be sure incorporate plenty of Salsa, Merengue and Bachata all night. Nothing gets people up to dance then some really great Spanish music!
My FI and I are both Puerto Rican....so everything from my dress to his surprise groom's cake is going to be decked out Boricua....We are going to have a band that plays Salsa Merengue and Bacata at the wedding. His cake is going to be the puerto rican flag with a bunch of little things surrounding it like a coqui and a few other odds in ends that I have bought...
I'm Puerto Rican. My fiance is half Chinese/half white. We're getting married in Puerto Rico and we're going to have some delicious Puerto Rican food at the reception (pernil asado, arroz con gandules, sorullitos, etc etc, yumm). I'm not a big fan of salsa or merengue but we'll have the DJ play some since that's pretty standard in Puerto Rican weddings.
Hello! My fiance is Puerto Rican/German and I am Mexican. A lot of our wedding is still in the planning stage but one thing I have been thinking about is our signature drink. I think I am going to try to find a cocktail that uses both Puerto Rican rum and Mexican tequila and call it the happy "marriage". I think it would be cute. I am not sure what liquor to incorporate for the German part. I know they are big beer people.
I think the food is a good way to incorporate culture as well as the music. I have no idea how our music coordination will work since the Puerto Ricans like salsa, merengue and bachata, the Mexicans like corridos, conjunto and tejano and then there is us and our friends who are rockers.
Good luck!
I'm Colombian and he is Cuban. We live in Florida and we are getting married in Bogota-Colombia. We are planning on having a group of son cubano, someone rolling tabacco for our guest and some cortaditos for the coffee lovers. The Colombian part will be the food....lots of empanadas, chorizos, arepas for appetizers. And ofcourse lots of ron and aguardiente...its gonna be a great party!!
My FI is Colombian as well and I've been asking what traditions he wants to include. He can't think of any specific rituals or anything that he wants to include, but we've come up with a few ways to include his heritage. We are having our rehearsal dinner at our favorite Colombian restaurant, will be serving aguardiente at the reception, and will have Colombian candy included somewhere (still figuring that out.) We are also playing a lot of Latin music (still debating about the DJ v. band) and will be dancing a cumbia for our first dance.
My fiance is puerto rican! His parents are both PRican, but they haven't made any request except salsa/latin music and there has to be rum! lol.
His grandparents only speak Spanish so we were going to have the vows in english/ than in spanish or try to add something in spanish for them. even though my spanish is VERY bad, I still try.
I am Puerto Rican and FI is half Puerto Rican and half West Indian (Barbadian). We both grew up in the Bronx so don't really know of many wedding traditions from Puerto Rico and since PR is so americanized anyway I am not sure there are myny like the other hispanic/latin countries. I do know that in PR it is customary to have Padrinos but not sure if we're having any
My FH is half Colombiano and I can ask him about which cumbias would be good. I know I've heard a few that mention Colombia! in the song, I will try to get the title. And ladies thanks for the aguaardiente idea!
Try being pr and dr (me)...and my So is italian...crazy families...I know we will be needing tons of food, music, and liquor. They don't have anything like el laso, but is that even traditional in PR weddings? i know it is more of a mexican tradition if anything...and I will have padrinos.
im a puerto rican living in mass but going to puerto rico to get marrried on summer because all our family is there... instead of music why dont you tried incorporating the colombian food to the feast???
Music is the most important thing (I think) culturally speaking for us of the Latin persuasion ;) I'm boricua and so is my fiance and we're going all out with the PR touches, because we're actually getting married on the island. We're incorporating traditional island sweets and candies into our favors and having a big lechon at our beach wedding, but since your Jewish, the pork thing probs won't fly so well, lol! Stick to music, and also remember there are lots of other ways to incorporate Latin tradition, like wearing a traditional mantilla instead of a veil and flowers in your hair. Other than that, I wouldn't worry so much about traditions and focus more on having the festivities reflect who you are as a couple, together and what YOU love!
Good luck ;)
P.S. There's an excellent Colombian salsa band called Grupo Niche that you should check out!
Can I qualify of sorts?
I was born in Puerto Rico and love love love that place! I speak a teeny bit of Spanish but my dad was fluent. We're not of Latin heritage, but that is a place that is so dear to my heart. I was born on Ramey AFB.
Love to all of you! <3
Music is very important. My future IL's are insisting that a serenade the night before the wedding is a must. I think it's very cute and sweet that they are so set on it.
And aguardiente is wonderful - I can sip on it all night.
I´m not Colombian or Puerto Rican, but I think you have a lot of great suggestions so far!
You have to incorporate the traditional food somewhere... it doesn´t need to be all Latin, but you can have Latin appetizers for cocktail hour and I love the idea of the cortaditos after the meal... you should explain guests what they are having and where it is from to make it mare fun (( I am Venezuelan, and since Venezuela produces the best cocoa in the world I brought the chocolate for the chocolate fountains from Venezuela, maybe you can take Colombian coffee to the venue))
An for the music, if you are like me and your guests are like mine (kind of boring lol) you can´t have Latin music for the whole reception, but you could have the "Hora Loca" at some point after the meal (maybe before the bouquet and garter tossing) a Latin band comes out totally unexpected playing whatever Latin music you like and bridesmaids and groomsmen start to form a line behind them and to trow whistles, maracas, hats, necklaces and other fun stuff at the guests so they start dancing and join the line (think Mardi Grass meets Carnaval). I love this idea and you could totally rock photo booth props like feather boas and mustaches on a stick!!
Me, me, me! lol, I'm actually half Puerto Rican and half Colombian. A lot of the traditions do stem from religion. Although the other ladies had some good suggestions regarding food and liquor.
One of the things you may want to incorporate, which may not be specifically to Puerto Rico or Colombia is having a dance with your fiance in which your guests get into the shape of a heart while you dance. I've seen it in pictures and although it sounds kind of cheesy it creates a beautiful picture when the photographer is looking down to take the picture.
Another aspect is the "crazy hour" which is common in most colombian traditions. Although it's partly crazy because since most of the festivities last till the wee hours of the morning it's when it seems the party is about to end and there is tons of fast pace music and non stop dancing for about an hour. The dancing is very imporant and a pretty famous old school salsa band is grupo niche. You can maybe get some inspiration from them along with Carlos Vives.
Some puerto rican brides also use the flower amapola which is commonly found in puerto rico. I've also seen some people use fans as favors, which gives to the hispanic flair and placing you and your FI's name and date on them would help kill two birds with one stone. Using a coqui figurine (the little frog, which is found in PR) can also be used as a favor to take with. Lastly there are also dolls that can be dressed similarly to the bride and groom. While the bride and groom go around saying hello to everyone the charms that are attached to the dolls are passed out to guests.
I know this may be late for the person who started the thread...and long but I hope it helps someone!
My mom is Colombian -- so do I count?? My FI (complete and total gringo) didn't want to wear a tie during our festivities (summertime in Texas I don't blame him), so we are incorporating guayaberas.. I've seen it worn by two different (male) cousins at their wedding where they have a white one with a white linen suit. I personally think it looks a little.. cheesy.. but my FI has a really light tan one, and he'll be rocking it with a chocolate brown suit..
Also - MUSIC. Dancing all night long!
My cousin with his bride and his family if it gives you any ideas?
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Oh my crazy bride head. I just wrote a loooong post regarding this question and then I realized it was posted a million years ago!!!! lol geez. Oh well, I'll leave it here for any other Colombian brides who may need it in the future?
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Colombian bride here :) We're not having dancing at our wedding but if you and your family or friends are big into dancing you want lots of Salsa, Vallenato & Merengue! Just fyi/Tip info though: Colombians don't call Cumbia to any of their dancing music. That is a 'misconception' that I have seen here. Cumbia for us is a typical dance that is only danced when you are in school during a folkloric festival. Salsa is the most famous dancing music followed by merengue & the traditional vallenato which is a very popular style too.
Salsa bands: Guayacan & Niche. Vallenato: Uhm I'm not very updated there, but a classic & famous one: Binomio de Oro & Diomedes Diaz.
Other famous Colombian artists: Juanes, Fonseca, Carlos Vives & Shakira. :-)
When it comes to food I can tell you that for my sister's bridal shower my mom made Arroz con Pollo and that was huge hit among the ladies. BUT you definitely not want to do that for a wedding, not too fancy. As far as finger food goes Empanadas (chicken or beef) are a huge hit too, always!
When it comes to candy, you can buy coffee delight candy which is a traditional coffee flavored candy that is also the most famous colombian export candy. There's also Arequipe (caramel spread) which is served with mozarella or "fresh" cheese or served spread on either a crispy thin "base" called Obleas or also on saltine crackers, Arequipe is another delicious option you can't go wrong with. :-)
I can't really think of traditions that may be different from other cultures like american or other hispanic cultures. Except for the Unity Candle that someone mentioned but from my experience I have seen that in many other weddings, so it's not really a Colombians-only thing. Since our ceremony will be outdoors we are replacing the Unity Candle with a Unity Sand.
Hope this helps you a little more!! :-)
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Hi all,
I'm wondering if there are any Colombians or Puerto Ricans out there? My fiance is Colombian but lived in PR since he was 7. I've asked him about traditions/music/etc that we can incorporate but he and his family just aren't very forthcoming....!
I've tried to find a Colombian cumbia that we can get our band to play... I kind of just don't even know where to start.
Does anyone have any ideas for things we can incorporate? The only limitation to this is that we're Jewish so anything that may be specifically Catholic or Christian would not really be appropriate.
Thanks!