Translator for our Wedding?

jencitamaria

For those of you who are incorporating two languages into your wedding, I would like some advice!

I am Canadian and English-speaking, and getting married to my Peruvian fiance in Peru.  The vast majority of our 45 guests will be his relatives and friends, with a few of my Peruvian friends plus my parents, cousin, and one friend from Canada.  I know that my mom would really appreciate being able to understand everything that is going on and said at the wedding, and would feel a little hurt and left out if everything was in Spanish.  Does anyone suggest having someone translate the entire wedding into English for my family (including the vows, speeches, etc), and if so, how should it be done?  With a translater sitting near my family translating quietly, or with the translator speaking in front of everyone? 

Thinking about my fiance and I doing our groom and bride toasts, I think its going to be a bit awkward, especially for me.  I know I'll get emotional  and sentimental during my toast and don't want to have to stop after every line to wait for the translator.  I speak Spanish fluently so I could repeat my toast afterward in Spanish, but that would feel weird too because the second time around I would feel kind of robotic. 

Finally, is it too much to ask one of my guests, my Peruvian co-worker/friend who speaks English fluently, to be the translator?  I don't want her to feel exhausted and like she is "working" my wedding.

Please share your thoughts!  Thank you!

mlewis85

I just went to a bilingual wedding.  The majority of us spoke English but the bride's family only spoke Chinese.  So the ceremony was mostly in English but the father of the bride gave a toast.  He gave it in Chinese but the bride's best friend translated.  Instead of doing line by line he read a section , then the friend translated.  He read another section and then the friend translated and so on.  B/c the friend was just as emotional about the day it still showed emotion when she repeated what he said.

I would recommend having a friend repeat the important parts (like your vows) in English for your family.

medeawolff

You may consider having a detailed program explaining/translating everything into English for the ceremony and only having key parts verbally translated into English. For your toast you could translate section by section instead of line by line like mlewis suggested. 

Good luck!

jencitamaria

Thanks for the suggestions!  I think that I will translate the vows/ceremony parts into English on a program for my Canadian guests, and ask a bilingual friend to translate  mine and my FI's toasts.  The toasts given by other guests I will just translate for my parents/WP myself, since they will be sitting at the same table as me.  Problem solved I think! 
Thanks again!