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My FI's parents speak Spanish, his father speaks conversational English, and his mother only knows a handful of words. There aren't any parts of the wedding ceremony that the groom's parents are "supposed" to take part in, so I don't have any particular jobs for them to do per se. However, our wedding ceremony is going to be bilingual for the benefit of both our families.
I think that just saying a few words in Korean during the welcome or something, in acknowledgment and respect for them, should be enough. I'm guessing your FI's parents are going to be too shy to play much of a role in the Canadian ceremony anyway. :) If you're planning on forming a receiving line, you might want to teach them a few handy phrases to use.
I am having a "three language" wedding- english, german and polish. our inlaws do not speak a common language - my fiancè is from poland and his parents emigrated to germany when he was 9 - so they speak polish and german (and russian!) and my parents are american (as am I) and they speak english (my dad is learning a bit of german)
I am addressing this "problem" in several ways:
i think the most important thing is not that your guests understand EVERYTHING but that they feel included and not left out.
Love the suggestions so far. My fiance is Cuban, and although is parents emmigrated to America 30+ years ago, his mother only speaks a few words of english and his father can speak it conversationally, but is extremely self-conscious of his accent. My parents only speak english.
I was planning to do the program in both english and spanish, along with a spanish reading during the ceremony. We will also be having a mojito bar during cocktail hour, along with a 10 piece band that are known for playing a great combination of regular "hits" and spanish music.
We are not having an bilingual or intercultural ceremony ourselves, but I just wanted to share an idea that our officiant shared with us about a situation with non-English speaking in-laws: the bride had her bouquet made so that it was actually three small bouquets, and then at a certain point in the ceremony sort of untied her large bouquet and offered one bouquet to her new MIL and one to her new grandmother-in-law. Our officiant said that it ended up being a beautiful moment and crossed the language barrier, involving them in the ceremony and showing the bride's commitment to the new family without making anyone uncomfortable because of language barriers. I don't know if that is helpful in ANY way but wanted to share just in case!
My FI's family is French (from France) and most of them don't speak any English at all.
We had our STDs invitations printed in two different languages. We tried to put everything on one, but it just ended up needing more paper products, which we are trying to cut down on to be eco. The wedding website is supposed to be in two languages, but I did the English section and he was supposed to do the French section for his family, but I think he's only done a few pages. However, the complain to him about his laziness so it's his issue really...it's more teasing than complaining.
For the ceremony, we will have some things in French, but the priest isn't bilingual. I'll be saying my vows in English and he'll say his in French (I'm fluent enough), so it will be meaningful that way.
For the reception we chose a bilingual MC (our mutual friend) to translate and the 3 speeches (MOH, BM and ours) will be in both languages. It's a bit of a pain, but we're trying to be as inclusive as possible. We don't have tons of MC moments, just a few things, so it won't drag things out too long!
We are having a bilingual ceremony by sheer luck! My FI is from Sweden and I had put him in charge of finding a church and he found a Church of Sweden about thirty minutes away from where we live. We decided that it was worth the drive to make him and his family feel not as isolated from the ceremony. The ceremony will be half in Swedish and half in English, not decided on what parts yet, and the vows in English since my Swedish is extremely limited (ie 10 words!!!!). We did the STD's all in English and will do the invites the same but the programs and signage at the wedding will be in dual. At times I get frusterated with dealing with all these sort of things but in the end I am happy to be including these things for my FI.
I went to a few multi languages wedding.. One was French/English/German; the other French/English/Indi.
The parents would do their parts in their own language, and the couple had translated prior so the other set of parents would do the translation in another language..
All very beautiful
We're having a bilingual ceremony. My fiance's parents and most of his relatives don't really speak English. Only a few of our guests are native English speakers - including my family. Our invitation cards, menu, etc will be printed in both languages.
I'm worried my family will feel left out during the reception because most of the people will be speaking Slovak language only.
Hmm I never thought about doing that. I speak 3 langagugaes, and we will have guests from different countries, they all know English at least a little bit, but I haven't thought about incorporating things for them. It's definitely something to think about.
I did as much as I could within reason in both languages. My wedding website, the invitations, the programs. I managed to convince my pastor to get me a rough draft of the entire ceremony in advance so that I could have it translated into Dutch for my MIL (deaf, hard of seeing, and doesn't speak more then 20 words of English) and my SIL's (both speak English but not fluently) and a good friend of ours (speaks very little English).
Everything went very well! :)
My fiance's parents don't speak english, but they are the only ones so we are going to have the ceremony translated so that they can follow along! :)
There is an app for smart phones that does instant translation-you say something in one language, it instantly gives you a voice translation in the language of your choice, and also a text of the message in whatever language you choose.
You might be able to incorporate that by having someone who speaks English sit next to those who don't and repeat key phrases into the phone.
This could also be easily used during the reception to include the non- english speaking in the activities, toasts, etc.
My English only parents will be the ones feeling a little left out at our Haitian wedding. The ceremony will be translated into English for our American guests. We're not doing a unity candle, so my mom's role as mother of the bride will be very minimal. I think with the language barrier they would feel awkward being front and center, so after my dad walks me down the isle they'll just sit back and relax. :)
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For those of you with inlaws who do not speak English, how are you incorporating them into your reception/ceremony (if you are having a primarily English event?)
Our Korea wedding is 2.5 months before the Canadian ceremony, and we are having a traditional wedding. Strangely, his parents don't do that much in the traditional wedding, but my mother has a few roles to play. (Thankfully they are not speaking roles for her).
However, when we get to the Canadian wedding, I'm not really sure the best way to include my inlaws. My FMIL does not speak any English and my FFIL can say a lot of words but not full sentences (the only other Korean speakers will be fluently billingual or primarily English speakers with some knowledge of Korean). Since we are already having the full Korean ceremony, we're not planning on reincorporating those same elements into the Canadian wedding, but I'm not sure what role they can play. FI says that I shouldn't worry about it as it will be his father's first trip abroad and his mother will be overwhelmed with cultural differences, but I still want to find a role for them.
Have any of the other bees been in a similar situation? What did you do?