Bilingual weddings are becoming increasingly common in Cape Town as lovebirds from different origins seek to incorporate their respective cultures into the big day. Love transcends language. And as our world becomes more interconnected, it is more common than ever for South Africans to marry someone of a different nationality and for guests from other countries to travel to Cape Town to attend their wedding celebrations. Consequently, they may have non-English speaking relatives, or perhaps a bride or groom is bilingual and wishes to incorporate this aspect of their lives into their wedding.
There’s something special about seeing families come together at a bilingual wedding, crossing language barriers to celebrate mutual friends starting a new life together. However, the planning of a bilingual wedding can be a daunting task. Especially when you know there will be guests who will encounter a language barrier. So below we suggest 5 unique ideas for a bilingual Cape Town wedding to ensure that all your guests are engaged and enjoying every part of your big day.
What is a bilingual wedding?
Simply put, a bilingual wedding is a marriage of two cultures – typically resulting in wedding guests who speak two different languages. Some of your wedding guests may also be bilingual, while others may only speak their native language.
Bilingual weddings bring together two families, two cultures, and two languages. As a result, they are often slightly different from what some of your guests might expect. However, this mix celebrates the differences in your culture and helps everyone feel included. The main goal, then, will be not to make guests feel uncomfortable, or worse, isolated, because it is not clear, for example, what time the ceremony will begin or, once the reception has begun, where the drinks area is.
5 Unique Ideas for a Bilingual Cape Town Wedding
- First of all, it is a very good idea to prepare your wedding invitations in two languages. Prepare a guest list by language and you will know how many invitations you need in each language. This is very important because it is necessary that your guests understand when and where your wedding will take place.
- When you start thinking about the decorations for your wedding, keep in mind that it would be great to have welcome signs and even directional signs in both languages.
- Create a website for your wedding. One of my favourite ideas is to create a website for your wedding. You can write all the information in both languages and send it to the guests. That way, if they have any doubts about the details of your wedding, they can always go on the web and find the information in their own language.
- If you hire a wedding planner to help you organise your wedding, try to find a team or one person who speaks both languages. It is very common for your guests to want to ask questions of a waiter or anything else and it is always very satisfying to have a person who can help you with the translation.
- When organising a bilingual Cape Town wedding, whether religious or civil (and of course symbolic), it will certainly be necessary to arrange for the presence of an interpreter. Certainly, for guests who speak a second language, it will be very nice to be able to follow the ceremony (or at least the most important moments) independently. Also at the reception, as there will certainly be speeches (i.e. congratulatory speeches from families, witnesses of the couple and the couple themselves), it would be very useful to have an interpreter to translate for those who do not speak the same language. These are such important and emotional moments that it would be a real shame not to capture their essence.
- If possible, include dishes from both cultures on the menu. It’s always very enriching to taste the flavours of other cultures, and what better way to do that than at a multicultural wedding. It’s always a win if guests don’t have to go home and put their wedding favours in a drawer.
- Another great idea is to choose songs for your wedding in both languages. If you’ve booked live music, this may be a bit complicated, but surely they can play something in everyone’s universal language: English. An example is choosing an English song for the groom’s entrance and a Spanish song for the bride’s entrance.
- At the banquet, guests need to be able to recognise their seats. As language can be a problem, use pictures (or numbers) instead of words as part of the seating plan. Managing seating at a bilingual wedding has always been tricky and, unfortunately, complicated. It will be necessary to make sure that, in the event that you have to put people together who don’t know each other at the same table, they will at least be able to communicate and chat easily.
- A cute idea for a bilingual wedding reception is to provide a ‘cheat sheet’ of common phrases in both languages to help your guests communicate. You could include one at each place setting or one at each table. Some phrases to include are My name is… Would you like a drink? Would you like to dance? Cheers!
Making Your Wedding Day an unforgetabble Experience
Your wedding day is a celebration of love and unity. By engaging wedding Interpreting services specialists, you can ensure that all guests, regardless of their linguistic background, can fully participate in the festivities. Clear communication fosters memorable experiences and ensures genuine engagement. Allow our team of skilled interpreters to manage the communication, allowing you and your guests to fully enjoy the moment. Contact us today for more informations at Tel: +27 12 348 3134| Mobile: +27 81 347 6060 | Email: info@frenchside.co.za
