Wedding Vows & Ceremony Discussions

Mixed cultural brides- working with language during ceremony

My fiance's family all speaks Armenian. Most of them speak English, to varying degrees, but some of them (maybe 10%) are Armenian only. We are having a really hard time finding an officiant who speaks both Armenian and English. One person suggested to me that we do the whole thing in English, have an Armenian reading and print the vows in Armenian on the back of the program. That sounds like a good balance to me. My fiance isn't 100% on board with it, though. Are you doing anything special to incorporate two languages?
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Re: Mixed cultural brides- working with language during ceremony

  • Is it possible to have a translator instead of a bilingual officiant?
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  • My XH was Croatian.   Most of his family spoke English but 2-3 of them, not so well.  We did the ceremony in English because 95% of our guests would understand it.   I did my vows in Croatian, however.  No one but me and XH knew about it ahead of time.   They were repeat after me vows so the officiant said them in English, so everyone would know what they were and I repeated them in Croatian.  It went over very very well with everyone, regardless of which language they spoke.

    You could also do translations for the major prayers/readings in your programs or offer the programs in both languages.
  • I agree with PP. What about a translator? Maybe not for the whole ceremony but the key parts like the vows & blessing
  • WonderRed said:
    My XH was Croatian.   Most of his family spoke English but 2-3 of them, not so well.  We did the ceremony in English because 95% of our guests would understand it.   I did my vows in Croatian, however.  No one but me and XH knew about it ahead of time.   They were repeat after me vows so the officiant said them in English, so everyone would know what they were and I repeated them in Croatian.  It went over very very well with everyone, regardless of which language they spoke.

    You could also do translations for the major prayers/readings in your programs or offer the programs in both languages.
    I love that idea!

  • Has anyone had a translator? I feel like it would take away from the ceremony and ensure that 50% of it is boring or repetitive to 100% of the guests. That's just my initial reaction to the idea. The vow idea is very sweet too, unfortunately I am not confident about my Armenian enough to attempt that. 

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  • SBmini said:
    Has anyone had a translator? I feel like it would take away from the ceremony and ensure that 50% of it is boring or repetitive to 100% of the guests. That's just my initial reaction to the idea. The vow idea is very sweet too, unfortunately I am not confident about my Armenian enough to attempt that. 

    I attended a DW where the officiant was only fluent in Spanish, so there was a translator. It didn't take away from the ceremony at all. It was actually really beautiful to hear everything in one of the languages of love :)
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