New here/questions about Dominican customs/traditions

sap221

Hi Ladies my name is Sue, I am new the board. I am from the Dominican Republic and FI is African American. I haven't attended many weddings so I was wondering if there are any customs/ traditions in Dominican weddings. We are trying to incorporate both culture. We have been dating for 7 years and got engaged Christmas 2009. Our wedding is 7/23/2011 in MD.

Thanks in advance for your help

Sue
:-)

Nikkanny

Im also dominican. I tried posting this a few weeks ago and had no luck... google it, there are some sites that give some info. Let me know if you have any other questions.

Carolito

Hi girls. I'm also Dominican but I live in DR, so maybe I can help. Dominicans weddings are a lot like American ones. The difference might be more religious than anything, but really, this are traditions that you can find in any country. In catholic weddings you can incorporate things like presenting your bouquet to the Virgin de la Altagracia (the mother of all Dominicans). You do that by informing the priest, who will select a moment to say that the couple wants to honor the Virgin by presenting the bouquet to the effigy of the virgin in that church. I wouldn't know what is traditional in other religious ceremonies.

In the reception, I don't know if its going to take place here in DR or in the US, but this are things that you could do either way. They are not "traditions" but you will have the Dominican feel:

- Dance a merengue as your first dance (that is if your FC knows how to!). There are some that are slow and really romantic. Think Juan Luis Guerra, Sergio Vargas and so on.
- Have Dominican mini desserts. You can have them in a Dessert Table or have someone pass them around like a "paletera" (those are the little informal sweets shops that you will see everywhere in DR). It looks really cute and your non Dominican guest will love it as much as Dominicans.
- Incorporate things in Spanish, like the number in tables or other details.
- Built your menu with some Dominicans dishes with a twist. Think Pasteles en Hoja, Pernil, Moro and so on.

Hope this helps. If you girls are getting married here, let me know if I can help by givving you ideas or pointers about vendors, venues and anything else.

Carolito

Oh! I forgot!

- About the first dance: This is how a lot of people do it, and how we are going to do it:

1. You can dance a soft song first. We chose At Last.
2. In comes the merengue. You two dance the first half. In the second dance, the bride dances with her father, and the groom with his mother. Almost ending, the couples pair up again, so that there are more couples on the floor, and that signifies that everyone can join in. Usually what happens is that you tell your friends to jump in with ther husbands-boyfriends, so that the dancing mood is created right away.

sap221

Thanks you ladies!! I truly appreciate all of your help. @Carolito funny you mentioned the thing about the first dance, we are thinking about doing a slow song and then doing a fast song so a merengue would be awesome!! again thanks!!

NJgurl19

Wow thanks

giselle1009

I'm planning my wedding right now...just got engaged. I am Dominican and my FI is African American and I was having a tough time trying to figure out how our wedding would be with our different cultures. What we might do is learn to do the traditional dominican dance and then show our personality with every other detail in our wedding. So maybe you can do something like that. Good luck mi vida...its nice to see platanos and collard greens in love.

hottiebun

Nice to see other Dominican Girlies on here!