Mexican Wedding Traditions

In Mexican weddings, Padrinos and Madrinas contribute financially to various expenses. For example, Victor chose his godparents to be padrinos de velación – they will help us pay for a portion of the church where we will be married. In the same way, there are padrinos for our wedding rings, flowers, photography, music, and invitations. While they may not pay the entire cost, they will help us with what they can. In addition, there are several items used during the wedding ceremony for which we will also choose padrinos. They are my bouquet, a lasso (which will be wrapped around us during the ceremony), a rosary, and a set of gold coins (and I’m missing something else here).Traditionally, the padrinos of the items used in the wedding ceremony (including padrinos of the church fee and the rings) will stand up front with the bride and groom at some point during the ceremony.

Bridesmaids and Groomsmen are not traditionally part of Mexican weddings. I have been asking a lot of people if they have been to weddings with bridesmaids and I only know of one person who has. A coworker told me that once she went to a wedding with bridesmaids, but instead of carrying flowers, the bridesmaids each carried one of the items I mentioned above and instead of standing with the bride and groom, the bridesmaids sat during the ceremony. Also, there weren’t any groomsmen. It is common to have junior brides in a wedding, and a ring bearer. There aren’t flower girls since in most churches, flower petals can’t be thrown on the floor. However, flower petals can be thrown on the bride and groom as they leave the church.

Another difference is that in many weddings there is not a procession down the aisle of parents, attendants, etc. In most instances, everyone waits outside for the bride and then follows her into the church.

The church offers an organ. However, we plan on hiring a string quartet to accompany the ceremony.

Finally, I can't decorate the church. Only white flowers allowed...THEIR white flowers. My madrina, Rocio, is going to see if we can get around that, so we'll see.

I will incorporate some American traditions into my Mexican wedding but I wanted you to be aware of some of the ceremonial differences, first!