Cutural Weddings: Eritrean Weddings Celebrate With Great Flare

My first cultural wedding! I love culture! Coming from a family with an Italian father and Mexican mother gave me a lot of culture to start off with but nothing compared to the insane amount of tradition that was involved in this extravagant wedding. When I am working on an event I usually remain focused on what needs to be done to ensure everything is running on schedule. Although this was the case, I found that there were points in time that the traditions being handled by the family left me standing in awe. I cannot repeat enough how much I love culture. It was an honor to partake in all these ceremonies and learning about the different traditions that they hold so closely to their heart.

The ceremony began at 4:30 pm at the Chapelwood United Methodist Church. Before the ceremony there were seven bouquets to hand out to the bridesmaids, seven boutonnière’s to pin on the grooms men, the ushers needed instruction, and finally I had to get all 14 of them in order to walk down the isle. Yes, the made of honor and best man made it down the isle with the rings safely tucked away. Soon after, the most beautiful bride I have yet to work with floats down the isle bringing tears to many loved ones eyes.

Picture time! With the help of a few family members we must have had 200 plus pictures snapped. Nancy Aidee, the photographer impressively managed a bridal party of 30 plus people maintaining a sweet smile. Now to get everyone on the limo bus, all 16 of them…Where is the bride?
Finally we rallied the women onto the bus where they commenced the celebration opening bottles of champagne accompanied by lots of laughter. 15 minutes later I thanked EJ for the fabulous ride by Royal Carriages and we enter the beautiful Omni Hotel. Here Samantha greets me with two other soireebliss! members and hands me a list of infinity things I must accomplish before the introduction of the bridal party.

One thing I did not account for in this cultural wedding is that the band did not speak one word of English…Hmmm. Another problem we run into with other cultures is that time really is not very important. Luckily we had a wonderful DJ named Will from Def Jam Blaster who was so incredibly flexible and wonderful to work with because if the band was still outside during their break, he would just keep jamming. Thank you Will.

Everything is running on schedule! The food at the Omni was absolutely exquisite. The décor in the banquet was breathtaking and the guests were all on the dance floor having the time of their lives. The bride and groom did a lovely toast and we cut the beautiful cake made by Who Made the Cake.

The stress is over, the event was lovely and most importantly we made the bride and groom, as well as all their loved ones truly happy! They celebrated till 2am the new beginning of the merging of two very lovely families. Congratulations to Mewael and Elise!



Yours Truly,

Vanessa Sinatora
Associate Planner