Hey guys – I recently came into contact with a woman in an intercultural relationship who became fed up with the lack of resources for intercultural couples trying to navigate thorny cross-cultural wedding issues. So she’s decided to fill the gap herself by writing a book on the subject (yay for initiative!). She’s looking to interview any sort of intercultural couple who are willing to share the story of their intercultural wedding, or are currently in the midst of planning such a wedding:
I’ve already interviewed about 30 couples and am looking to speak to some 20-30 more. I’m especially interested in couples that planned a bilingual wedding, and those that encountered cultural problems during the planning process. However, I’d be interested in hearing from anyone who is married to (or planning to marry) someone from a different cultural background.
I myself am an intercultural bride – I’m African-American, my husband is German. I got the idea for the book when planning my own wedding and realized that no wedding book on the market addressed many of the issues that I had to face (such as what country to have my wedding in!) If you’re interested in participating, please contact me at weddingswithoutborders@gmail.com. Thanks!
The survey she sent me was plenty long (I’m still working on it!), but it looks like she’s doing a great job gathering every bit of information other couples might be interested in. So if you’d like to share your story, send her an email.
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Oh, and as a quick note, if you’re interested in being on my blog roll, and are an active community participant here (commenting and the like), just shoot me a quick email (gorigirl.admin@gmail.com) and I’ll add you – I’m really bad about keeping up with that, and I know there’s some of you who deserve to be up there.
3. June 2008 at 9:48 pm
I responded to this woman’s request and am happy to participate in her study. I’m so glad she’s working on this because I know first hand that there are not enough good resources out there for those trying to plan a wedding that incorporates two (or more) cultural traditions. What someone really needs to develop is a white woman’s guide to planning a Hindu wedding (cuz I could really use one of those right about now!
) I bought Western wedding planner, and it’s amazing how many things in there are really not all that applicable to my situation.
I have been reading a book that I recommend called “Wedding as Text: Communicating Cultural Identities Through Ritual” by Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz. It’s very academic, but it does a great job exploring how different couples tackle intercultural and interfaith weddings and how community, ritual, and identity affect the way weddings take shape. Anyway, it’s more interesting than I’m able to make it sound – definitely worth checking out.
4. June 2008 at 8:19 am
CT I TOTALLY thought of you when Gori posted this—I’d love to hear how your participation goes!
Ahhh you and Gori…the big academics on the board, I love it! I still love your personal stories, too
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4. June 2008 at 9:22 am
CT, I totally hear you on the “White Girl’s Guide to Planning a Hindu Wedding” thing. It would’ve come in handy! Although, of course, there are so many different traditions that it would have to be “…Planning a Bengali Wedding” or “…Planning a Gujrati Wedding” or “…Planning a Telegu Wedding,” etc. I can’t tell you how many times I read about something online and mentioned it to my MIL, only to have her say “Oh, that’s a ____ thing. We don’t do that.”
I’m thinking about doing the survey, but I’m so crazy busy right now that I don’t know if I’ll have time to do something really long. We’ll see.
4. June 2008 at 8:01 pm
I love the idea of this book as well…it would have really come in handy while planning my wedding (which is rapidly approaching – one more month, almost, and we’ll be married!!!) I sent her an email and offered my participation – hopefully after the wedding, I’ll have a bit more time to work on it (and to post here more regularly!)
5. June 2008 at 9:51 am
D – You are totally right! There would have to be different chapters devoted to different regions. And even within a particular region or state traditions can vary. At M’s sister’s wedding, one of the “Aunties” who was helping her and is also Gujarati told her she was supposed to go out and greet the groom after his procession and give him the garland then. So she did that, and everyone in her family was like “What are you doing? The groom is not supposed to see you yet!” In the village where M’s family is from the couple exchanges garlands while on the mandap. So in different parts of Gujarat, the wedding rituals differ. I can’t remember if you’ve mentioned it before and I missed it, but what region of India does G’s family come from?
Mocroidh – how exciting! One month! I hope when you get a chance you can share some of the details of your wedding. I’d love to hear about it!
And yeah – Gori, you weren’t kidding. That survey is long! I’ll have to try and squeeze in time to work on it. But the questions are very interesting.
5. June 2008 at 10:37 am
CT – I usually don’t say, because G’s community is fairly small. I think I might have mentioned on here once that Goa is the main hub for them. But even in their tiny community, there are two main groups, and the languages and traditions are pretty different. When is your wedding, again?
Mocroidh – this month will go quickly, but try to find some time to relax and enjoy it! Good luck, and I can’t wait to hear about the details, too.
5. June 2008 at 11:13 am
Thanks for this resource. Husband & I certainly could have used it when we got married some years ago. My family was spectacularly open, but by the time I tied the knot, i think they were just happy i wasn’t going to live my life alone as a spinster.
I’m happy to have found you! This is a great site!
5. June 2008 at 12:18 pm
Ah, D, gotcha. My wedding’s in August. We just had a meeting with the caterer yesterday. I’m so excited – we’re having a mango lassi fountain!
7. June 2008 at 4:52 pm
Hey GoriGirl (and everyone else),
First timer here but I enjoyed reading through your blog.
But introductions first, I’m a Bengali army brat married to an upstate NY gori – sound familiar?
But first let me step back a little, I’m actually half Bengali-half Maharashtrian, so I could probably qualify as a “masala kid” myself. My sister, shes in grad school in AZ and married her classmate, a gora Alaskan native (and they just had the cutest baby too). And my uncle, well he paved the way and married a gori from the UK. There, thats all the masala in our family tree. Glad to know theres so many others out there (the Livejournal masala couples community was an eye opener too, thanks for the link). I think you have a great bunch of links up here on your Resources page.
7. June 2008 at 5:49 pm
Ohh and since we all love pictures
Pictures from our trip to India in December ’06
Pictures from our Presbyterian ceremony
Pictures from our Hindu ceremony – coming soon this December
9. June 2008 at 3:02 pm
Hmmm…….In a sense a lot of Indian marriages are “intercultural” because there are so many different cultures and languages within India. You should really see “Riddle of Midnight” by Salman Rushdie. You’ll understand the riddle by the end of the documentary…..
10. June 2008 at 5:58 pm
Although not quite inter-cultural, this is quite possibly one of the funniest desi wedding stories around. (Written by one of the funniest bloggers)
10. June 2008 at 11:48 pm
@voodoochild: Welcome! I’m another Caucasian married to an Indian (my husband grew up in India and came to the U.S. for grad school). Both of our families have been great about it from the start, so we haven’t had a very tough time of it, but I’ve been enjoying these communities nonetheless – it’s fun to compare experiences. Another one that your wife might enjoy is “marriedtoindia.com”. Not a blog so much as a discussion page – so, less polished posts (and you don’t get to join, sorry!) but it a password protected place for discussions (for the anonymity obsessed of us), so it can be a nice compliment to awesome blogs like this one.
The photos are great, btw – I look forward to seeing the last batch!
12. June 2008 at 8:57 am
@voodoochild – Thanks for sharing your slideshows – they were beautiful!
I also wanted to wish everybody a Happy Loving Day!
http://www.lovingday.org/holiday.htm
18. June 2008 at 7:40 pm
@ CaliforniaTransplant: I told Aditya about your mango lassi fountain, and his jaw completely dropped. That is so amazing there are not words. So. Amazing. It also strikes me as a wonderful blend of cultures – I’ve never heard of “fountains” being used in Indian weddings/receptions, but you might be a trend setter there.
@ mocroidh: I knew you were planning a wedding, but I didn’t know it was so soon. Good luck with everything!
@ Kit-N_Kumari: (belated) Welcome to the blog. Feel free to jump in and share your knowledge!
@ voodoochild: welcome to the blog to you too! Sounds like you have quite the “mixed-up” family (in a good way
) Your pictures are really great! Your wife is very lovely & looks so happy in the wedding photos that it brought a smile to my face. And your India pics were also great!
A book on Hindu wedding traditions would be thick since there’s so many of them. Personally, I highly recommend the “let your in-laws take care of it and show up for the party” style that Aditya and I followed.
Happy Loving Day to you too, CT (and everyone else)!
Guilty confession: I still haven’t finished the survey. But I’m motivated now after posting some more about our Hindu wedding.
19. June 2008 at 4:51 am
(Oh, I’m relieved to see your guilty confession… since we didn’t manage the phone call before I started my current phase at work, and seems unlikely it’ll happen ’til this phase is done, now – I’d hate to be the only one taking a while!)
19. June 2008 at 10:34 am
I just got the survey a couple of days ago because it was slow at work. Of course, now things just picked up again and I’ll be busy for the next few weeks. Good thing it doesn’t have a deadline! Also, I’m not even going to bother giving it to G, because it’ll never ever get done if it’s in his hands. He’s the biggest procrastinator evah.
19. June 2008 at 10:40 am
Gori, my response to the caterer when he asked if we wanted the mango lassi fountain was: “You’re kidding! You can do that?!!!” It never would have occurred to me to ask for it, but apparently these caterers having been doing it for a while.
And I have guilty confession too – I haven’t finished with the survey either. I guess we’re all guilty of taking our sweet time.
7. July 2008 at 10:44 pm
FYI, Thanks for the referral to Weddings without Borders. I did contact her, and she was interested in our story. We are the example of what to do if you don’t want to deal with societal judgement of your intercultural relationship—we eloped! (6 months after we met, 21 years ago!) (I was 12 ha ha!) He’s Brazilian, I’m Jewish from Missouri.
You look gorgeous in your wedding dress, by the way. Congratulations–If I read correctly, it looked like your wedding was fairly recent?
27. July 2008 at 7:41 pm
a good general guide would be ” a comprehensive indian wedding planner”, by Sarbjit Gill
http://www.amazon.com/Comprehensive-Indian-Wedding-Planner/dp/0970066104/ref=pd_sbs_b_3
I also recommend Nirali magazine’s Weddings section:
http://niralimagazine.com/category/weddings/
great for inspiration!
6. August 2008 at 9:10 am
I’m a white American girl who married a pretty fresh-off-the-boat Pakistani guy five years ago, and I remember being really frustrated by the lack of any information about the things I was dealing with, and the lack of anyone who could relate, so I’d be happy to harticipate.
26. August 2008 at 12:02 am
@Deanna – thanks for the compliment! I enjoy reading your blog too, by the way. Our Hindu wedding was a little over half a year ago, but we’ve been married from a civil ceremony for about a year and a half. Our civil ceremony wasn’t quite an elopement, but it was extremely casual.
@adila – yay links! I’ll check them out as soon as I can. I’ve already linked to a couple of Nirali magazine articles, though.
@BRash – glad to have you hear, and I’m sure Weddings Without Borders will be glad of your help.
26. August 2008 at 8:44 am
Loved that mango lassi, CT!
28. February 2009 at 2:30 am
My mum and dad are inter cultural.From what i hear, there really were problems with the cultural difference but things went smoothly in the end:)
2. March 2009 at 9:34 pm
Hi! I'd love to hear more about your experiences in the future….