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My husband is French Canadian and I am from the States. We had a Catholic (non-mass, I'm not Catholic) wedding. We had one of the readings done in English and one done in French, but the majority of the ceremony was done in English. We made programs in English and French, which seemed to go over well.
For us, the biggest ice breaker was alcohol. It sounds crass I guess, but after about an hour everyone from both languages were mingling and, later on, dancing togehter. We even had an after party organized by friends of mine and friends of his.
Maybes it sounds a little dorky, but could you arrange a walk on the freedom trail guided in French and English? Maybe some trivia about the two languages/places? The scavenger hunt also sounds like a fun idea. A casual get together in a relaxed bar can work wonders as well!
My husbands family is Belgian and so we had a lot of foreign travelers at our wedding. For the ceremony we did the prayer of the faithful with me reading in english and him reading in french. We also had french music scattered in with other songs and kind of avoided the current top 40 but more classic songs that everyone knew.
We didn't do anything in particular to get the two sides to mingle, but most of the Belgians knew at least conversational english so they all ended up talking with each other just fine.
Thanks for your suggestions! :)
I'm glad to hear that something as low-key as going out to a bar can help. And I love the idea about the French songs - I will ask our band about that one.
Did either of you have both a French wedding cake as well as an American wedding cake? I personally don't like the croquembouche and I don't even know if it could be done "up to French standards" at a Boston bakery, but I'm willing to look into it. Also, I am hesitant about the cost.
Thanks again for sharing your experiences!
We just did a traditional butter cream cake, everyone seemed to like it. One thing I was a little disappointed about was that the best man apparently had no intention of doing a speech for my husband. I didn't know this, and I guess its not common for speechs to be made by the attendants in French receptions?
In any case, it left my MOH rewriting her speech at the last second to kind of incorporate both myself and my husband, so he wouldn't feel left out. I think that was the only bad surprise for me. My husband is kind of clueless and couldn't really give me any of the French perspective as to typical wedding traditions.
We just had a regular cake, though my MIL had an espresso served with it, which people seemed to like.
ME! Fiancé is also French and we also live in Paris, but we are getting married here. It is easier to plan a wedding in the city where you live and it is more attractive for the Americans to come to Paris than to invite the French to Wisconsin...
Anyway, we are doing readings in English and probably some responsorial psalms as well, I will say vows in English and he will do French, the rest of the mass will be in French. We are also having bridesmaids and groomsmen à l'américaine and will be doing a rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. Also FI will be wearing a 3-piece suit and not la jacquette, even though his mother REALLY wants him to wear a jacquette, we just don't like them! Our invitations and other paper products are all bilingual...Other than that I guess we aren't doing anything else to incorporate specific traditions. It seems to me that French and American traditions are pretty similar...
@mskalinin - really? the témoin didn't prepare a speech? As far as I know the French love to go all out with speeches and even songs for the couple. Normally it isn't just the témoins but all of their friends who plan things.
Oh sorry, I just read that he is French-Canadian, so not the same culture...
Hi Miss Paris,
Thanks for your input. All the best for your upcoming wedding in Paris! That is funny that you are doing bridesmaids and groomsmen. We're actually just having the témoins stand up at the altar with us - and they're both guys.
We're getting married on May 1, 2010 but it doesn't benefit les Français because it falls on a Saturday this year.
By the way, did you try to look into a group discount for the airline fare for your American guests? A French cousine asked us to negotiate a low group airfare with AirFrance but we haven't had time to look into that. It's been hard enough with the visa/green card documents and booking everything else from overseas.
@Manchot -Félicitations to you too!
I thought about looking into group rates, you can usually get them for 6 people or more. But people are not all flying out of the same airport and not everyone is flying on the same days so I dropped the idea of trying to coordinate flights for the Americans. I figure I'm already doing alot to organize this wedding and that people can take care of their own flights...I would like to get a group rate at a hotel in my neighborhood, but the reaction I got from the only one I asked so far was really discouraging and I've been too shy to ask again!
It is funny that the cousine française veut un tarif avec Air France, ils sont carrément plus chers que d'autres compagnies, tels United, American, ou US Airways (even if I DO NOT recommend US Airways)...
We are doing the bridesmaid/groomsmen thing because we both have brothers and I have a sister and we wanted to include them, plus I like the idea of being preceded down the aisle. At a recent French wedding I was at it was kind of disappointing to see the groom immediately followed by the bride, there was no build up to her arrival!
A May wedding is always good for the French even if the 1st is on a Saturday this year...They are pretty much expected to take some time off in May and generally do nothing in between the numerous holidays :) But it does stink that all the holidays pretty much fall on weekends in 2010, l'horreur!!!
I don't know if the lack of speech was because of differing customs, or because of the obliviousness of my husband and his friend. My husband said "Well I never asked him to make a speech," but as far as I know, you don't normally ask someone to make a speech in your honor!
Bygones.
Hope you guys have fun with your weddings! We had a blast with everyone!
I'm from Québec and having a bridal party is not common at all here so that might be the reason why your husband's friend didn't do a speech. We are not having a bridal party and my fiancé's family (FSIL) tought that it was really weird.
Yeah I figured it must be some kind of difference in custom. I asked my husband about his friend's intention (to make a speech, to not make a speech?) several times before the wedding, but he would always just say he didn't know. If he had told me that bridal parties are not the norm in Quebec (which I just learned right now from you!) I might have put two and two together and figured against the BM making a speech.
My husband is oblivious sometimes, its amazing.
You see more bridal parties now. It never even crossed my mind to have bridesmaids. I think I'm oblivious too!! LOL
So one of the biggest differences that I found was that my FIL were used to having everyone in the world at the church, a big group for cocktails after, and a smaller group for dinner. We were limited in how many people we could actually seat for dinner so they thought that was the best solution is just to have a smaller dinner party, with 100 invited but more at the church. That took a lot of explaning that it would be perceived as a bit rude here, especially since most people we invited came from several hours away. We did end up inviting some of the people who lived closer by over for drinks and dancing afterwards but I just refused to make people drive several hours and then say sorry no food for you (or just appetizers but then please shoo while we feed our closer friends). It's how it's done where they live but I think I would have lost half my friends.
I know that in Québec it's really usual to invite some people to dinner and then invite others only for dancing later. It's not perceive as rude but we're not going that route anyway.
Its funny how my husband's family had NO input on our wedding. We asked them a couple times what was the norm for them, what their side would be expecting, etc. But we got nothin. The only person from his side of the family at my shower was his mother. It felt a lot like his family just were not interested. His groomsmen didn't even show up for the rehearsal and that really made me and some of my BM's angry.
Now that I see you saying that this whole bridal party thing is not common in Quebec it really explains a lot for me!
I am working on my french! Est-ce que tu veux du vin?? Haha, I'm so bad...
Yeah, my husband and I have always put off learning french (him taeching me) because we could always "do it later." I had never studied any romance language, not spanish or french or italian, so it was kind of daunting to figure out where to start. But we made a resolution after we got married to just start it already, damnit! So now Tuesdays and Thursdays are the days we sit down in the kitchen and just do it.
I am at the point where I can understand quite a lot of what is said, but I can't answer, so learning some basic phrases is really a great feeling.
We started on conversation and grammer involving food and kitchen stuff since a large amount of social gatherings with his friends are dinner parties. XD
Oh I feel you on learning french. Such a hard language! I was listening to it at work on my Ipod, and I can understand things pretty well when I know the basic storyline. But jeesh in family situations where they just start talking about random things and joking around, I get so lost, and pronunciation - ack!
The pronunciation is the WORST for me. I am so bad at it, and it really leaves me with no confidence to try and talk in front of anyone, even my husband. He laughs at me for being so shy about it because I speak Japanese, so he doesn't understand where the hesitancy is coming from. But Japanese is SOOOO much easier to pronounce!
My XH is French. Only two members of his family came to the wedding and his friends speak English, so it was pretty easy. His family members who live in some countries (not European) could not get visas, so that was kind of sad.
We did have little "mixers," so they could meet my family members one-on-one. He and I translated during that time. Plus, my mom and grandma speak some French, and most of XH's friends are French so they felt very welcome.
At the wedding, we did everything in English mostly, but we did say a big thank you in both English and French and my XFIL gave a lovely speak in French, which XH translated.
Wedding invitations were in both French and English.
CurlyDreamer - only 2 of your exhusband's French family members attended your wedding in the U.S.?
My fiancé and I know several internationl couples here in Paris (Frenchmen with spouses from other countries) and it was a very similar situation. The French husbands' parents did not attend their weddings, which took place on other continents. The reasons that the French parents gave for not attending the weddings was that it was too far away and that they had never been on an airplane before. The weird thing is that one of the sets of French parents is young - under 50 - so they didn't have any health problems or other issues that would have prevented them from traveling. Apparently, our French friends' parents had never traveled outside of France so they were admittedly not keen on going overseas to another country. The lack of attendance of the grooms' parents was hurtful to their brides' families but luckily they were able to smooth it over, using "cultural differences" as the official explanation.
My French fiancé was just as shocked to hear about this trend as I was. At least we will be prepared if very few of his family members show up. But still...a wedding is a big milestone and it is a shame that some parents don't make the trek to support their children.
@Manchot: Yes, only two! And we invited EVERYONE in his family! Spent a small fortune on postage too! Neither his brother (who is XH's BFF!!!) nor sister came -- and his sister works for Air France! lol...
My belief, based on living there, is that the act of a wedding doesn't necessarily hold the same value it does here for people of older generations -- not saying marriage doesn't -- only the actual wedding. None of my friends there (all 30 or above) are married or even engaged. In fact, none of our French friends who live here here are married -- not one(not including those who married for immigration purposes)!
I can't say the travel is part of it, as lots of the X's family came here for touristy things, but none of them could be bothered to come for the wedding. Weird.
Best to prepare yourself and your FI for not having a lot of French guests and if they do come, it will be a nice addition!
We had the opposite, though DH is not French but Belgian. We thought hardly anyone would make it because well it's a big trip and we only had a 4 1/2 mo. engagement (not much time to prepare a big trip). And while there were of course a lot less people that could come because it was held in the US there were still 20 people who came over. Though it probably helped that the wedding was held at his parents house so they felt comfortable and had a place to stay.
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Are there any Franco-American couples on Weddingbee?
I am American and my fiancé is French. We currently live in Paris, France but will get married in Boston, MA.
I'm wondering how Franco-American couples are incorporating both French and American traditions into their wedding ceremonies and receptions.
Our priest speaks French. Although we are both bilingual, I will say my vows in English and my fiancé will say his vows in French. We are incorporating readings for the nuptial mass in both French and English, but other than that, we haven't thought of anything else.
More importantly, any ideas for how to break the ice between the French and the American guests? Our bilingual friends will be helping to facilitate conversation at the reception, but I was considering having a scavenger hunt with (mixed nationality) teams around the city of Boston prior to our wedding.
All of our family and friends will be coming from out of town (with the exception of my parents) and we'd like to make sure everyone feels welcomed and included.