Questions & Answers About Marriage

Q. I am African-American and my fiancé is French-Canadian. We are planning a wedding and reception that recognizes both of our backgrounds. We want to “jump the broom” at the end of the ceremony as we begin to head back up the aisle, but I’m concerned that most of my fiancé’s friends and family won’t know about the tradition or its significance. How can we best explain it to them — should we put something in the program, or have the minister explain it just before it happens, or…? Thanks in advance for your help.

A. How wonderful that you wish to incorporate your individual heritage into your wedding! The “Jumping Of The Broom” ceremony can be a wonderful, lively addition to any nuptial celebration. So that your guests can understand the tradition and symbolism behind this custom, you can speak with your printer or stationer about creating either an insert or section of your program that would explain what will happen when you jump the broom. Your officiant can also offer an explanation before it occurs to solidify what is already written in the program.

Q. I am in a spot. My mother has always wanted me to wear her wedding dress, which is a pretty typical Eurocentric-style gown that she wore in the late 60s. I like the dress, and don’t object to wearing it, but I have always had my heart set on having a wedding that really celebrates my African heritage, with traditional attire. What should I do?

A. ou may not be in a “spot” as much as you think you are! Let your mother know about your wish to have an Afro-Centric wedding celebration and that while you can appreciate her idea of you wearing her gown, you would prefer to be wed in traditional African attire. It is important that you express your wishes and feelings in a positive manner so that she can understand what would make you happy on this special day. If you are open to the idea of compromise, you could always wear her gown for the actual wedding ceremony and change into an African outfit for your reception. If you really wish to stay with the idea of African attire for your wedding day, perhaps your photographer could create a portrait of you wearing your mother’s wedding gown. What a lovely gift to present to her as a thank-you for bringing you to this important part of your life!

Q. My fiancé and I are planning on having an open bar at our reception, but would like to offer some special beverage choices to go with our Caribbean-themed menu. Can you suggest something special and culturally-appropriate?

A. Since you have chosen Caribbean-inspired foods as the stage for your wedding reception, look to the fruits of the tropics as inspiration for your bar. A wonderful idea would be to serve a traditional island drink such as rum punch as a highlight drink during the cocktail hour of your reception. Have your caterer create a “rum punch station” complete with tropical fruits and flowers to give that island ambiance. Guests can savor this deliciously refreshing drink in colorful glasses with little umbrellas or for a really interesting kick, serve it in hollowed-out coconuts! Don’t forget to add items such as ginger beer and local island beers to round out the selection on your bar.

Q. I’m on a very tight budget in terms of a reception location. Help! Do you have any great, cost-cutting ideas?

A. Your reception is generally 48-53% of your overall wedding costs, so if you are working below the national average of $17,000 for your celebration, finding the right components to create a great reception is always a challenge! When looking for a reception site on a budget, you’ll need to consider a few things. Are you willing to compromise on the date and time of your celebration? If the answer is yes, then the battle is almost won! Plan your wedding for any other day than Saturday and you can save up to 50% in some cases. If your nuptials occur on a weekday (or night) the savings can be even greater. You will be able to get a great location for a fraction of the cost that other couples are paying during primetime. Some other cost-cutting measures: Investigate the idea of using a friend or relative’s home to host your reception, contact your local church or temple to inquire about the use of their hall, look to local lodges (such as Knights of Columbus, V.F.W., etc.) or contact the local Recreation and Parks Bureau to inquire about the use of community recreation facilities. Whichever route you choose, remember careful planning will always be the key.

Q. My fiancé and I are planning a wedding and reception with lots of Afrocentric elements. We want to set the tone with our invitations. Any suggestions? Thanks so much for your help!

A. Invitations always set the tone for a wedding celebration. In order to convey the message to your guests about the type of event that you are hosting, sit down with your fiancé and look over the many invitation catalogs that are available through the mail and via the Internet. If nothing in the books strike your fancy, consider consulting with a graphic artist who can help you create an invitation that will touch the hearts of your guests and send that special blend of culture in a big way. Don’t forget the wording of your invitation — it’s not only the look of the package, but also what is contained inside that counts just as much. Look to traditional African poetry or the writings of great African-American writers as inspiration for the script of your invitation. If you wish for your guests to attend your nuptials in traditional African attire, make sure that it is noted on a separate enclosure card. The end result of your careful thoughts? Guests who will eagerly anticipate the wonderful occasion of your cultural event!

Q. My concern for my May 20th wedding is… I am having a reception for approximately two hundred guests at a Victorian home. The home features seating on the porches, limited seating inside the home and a large backyard for tables. The facility comes with ten 48-inch round tables only and the manager is stating this will be sufficient (actually more than enough). I am having a light buffet-type hors d’oeuvres reception. I also want to provide assigned seating for the wedding party, their dates, and the grandparents and parents. Do you think 10 tables will be enough?

A. I have found that it can be quite a chore for guests to manage a plate of food, a drink and conversation all at once! If you have ten 48-inch tables at your disposal, you can figure on using at least five of them for “assigned seating” and those tables will seat four to six people comfortably. That will leave five more to be used in various areas of the facility. My suggestion to you: Consider renting cocktail tables and additional chairs. Cocktail tables are waist-high and can be placed throughout the mansion, thereby giving your guests some additional room. The extra rental chairs can be placed in conversational groupings of two to three each, so your attendees will have a place to sit and chat about the wonderful wedding you are hosting!

Q. I am getting married this summer and am on a tight budget and want to make the bouquets and flower arrangements for my special day with the assistance of my bridesmaids. Can you give us some quick and easy tips on how to accomplish this and what is the best way to transport fresh flowers from home to the church?

A. To reduce your costs on flowers, try going to the local wholesale flower market. You can find beautiful blooms at great prices! Know that seasonal flowers will cost a lot less than those that may have to be shipped in for you. For bouquet design ideas, try small clutch or handheld bouquets using a single floral theme (wildflowers, gerbera daisies, alstroemeria). Find a coordinating ribbon to wrap the stems or go “au naturel” and leave the stems exposed. You will need a water source for the flowers so they won’t wilt, so purchase some inexpensive vases or bubble bowls to place the bouquets in at the reception. It’s an easy way to create lovely centerpieces for your attendants’ tables!

To transport the flowers on the big day, obtain a few five gallon industrial buckets. You can place the arrangements in this holder and get a family member or a friend who has a van or station wagon to take them to the ceremony site for you!

Q. My fiancé and I are having a dinner reception. Our caterer is requesting a count of which entrées our guests would like. Is it proper to ask our guests to choose their entrée on the response card? If not, how would we gather this information?

A. It is perfectly acceptable to include a menu selection card with your wedding invitation package. Simply have your stationer create an enclosure similar to your response card that reads:

Entrée Selection

___________ would prefer ___________

Please select one of the following:

Grilled Salmon
Prime Rib
Stuffed Chicken

Using this method will enable you to have an accurate count to give to the caterer and will help you determine your final costs. One final, yet important note: It is wise to inform your guests that their selection is final. Most culinary staffs prepare a certain amount of entrées based on the definitive numbers you gave them, so any of your guests who may decide to “change their minds” when the entrées are being served may have to make do with whatever the staff can whip up! Consider using the “the grapevine” of family members and friends to get this message across to your attendees.

Q. I just got engaged a week ago and my fiancé and I wish to get married this year. It seems like everyone is getting married this year. Friends and family are telling us that it will be impossible to get a wedding date. Always optimistic, I am thinking about having a wedding on a Friday evening or Sunday afternoon. Do you think this will be possible to do this year?

A. When you are in love, anything is possible! The second part to that statement would be: If you plan carefully, you can accomplish your goal! As a wedding planner, I can tell you that this year is a very busy one for those who wish to get married. However, your idea of hosting your event on a Friday evening or a Sunday afternoon is right on target. Saturday is the most requested day for a wedding, so most sites book those dates very quickly. By choosing any other day than Saturday, you can generally reduce your costs as much as twenty to thirty percent and be able to rent the site you really like.

Q. I am undecided about the theme for my wedding. We are both big football fans of the Cowboys and Vikings… how can I incorporate this with my reception? I am planning to use balloons as decorations for the reception.

I also would like an idea of how to prepare the “jumping the broom” of the ceremony and preparing the “broom” itself.

A. You’ve got a great theme to work with! Why not mix traditional helium balloons with more festive Mylar ones, imprinted with the teams’ logos? Use coordinating ribbons to tie them together in a bunch and add a weighted football at the base so they will be able to stay in place. Put these balloon “bouquets” all around your reception area to add a fun, festive look to the room. Consider having the groom and his attendants rent vests that have the teams’ logos on them. These are available through most formalwear shops and can be an inventive way of pulling your football theme into the wedding. Also, you might use the idea of a “groom’s cake,” designed in rich, luscious, decadent milk chocolate with a playing field as the decorations to serve in addition to a more traditional, lighter wedding cake. Find some NFL party bags to serve as cake bags for guests to take this treat home.

A jumping of the broom ceremony can be as complex or as simple as you would like it to be. First, determine where you will perform this ritual. Will it be during the actual wedding ceremony or at the reception? It would be wise for you to sit down with your fiancé and discuss what this portion of your day will mean to each of you. There are a few books and guides available to help you create a meaningful ritual that will help you and your guests remember and honor those who have gone before us.

To make this broom is quite simple. I always suggest that you purchase a simple corn broom, approximately four to five feet in length. Then, use your imagination! A brightly patterned African fabric, ribbon, raffia, cowrie shells, dried flowers and herbs, the list is positively endless as to how you can adorn your broom. To make your guests an important facet of this, cut some ribbon or fabric into six-inch lengths. As they enter the facility, have a hostess or other family friend provide them with an indelible marker, so that they can inscribe a wish or sentiment onto the fabric. These strips would then be fastened to the broom with stickpins and the hopes and wishes of your guests would be with you as you make your “leap into da land of matrimony.”

Q. I was going to get married on November 27, 2010, but my father died one week before the wedding. It was hard to get married without him being there so we postponed the wedding until June 3, 2011. I would like to ask your help with something to do at the ceremony that we can do as a tribute to him. It will make me very happy to do something for my father because he was one of my very best friends in the world and I miss him very much.

A. It is so wonderful and a tribute to the relationship that you and your father shared if you can include something simple, yet meaningful in your nuptial ceremony about how you feel on that day. Consider having his favorite song played during the ceremony and the verses printed in your program with a short inscription from you, telling why you chose to do this. If you know what his favorite flower was, have your florist place a few sprigs of it in your bouquet or in the floral designs in the ceremony site. You can also have a candle display with a note in the program stating that the candle burns in memory of him.

Q. My fiancé has chosen his sister to be his “Best Man” because she is his best friend besides me. Since this is a little out of the ordinary, we don’t know what to refer to her as. Best Man? Best Woman? Do you have any suggestions?

A. I have had the pleasure of planning a few weddings where the honor attendants were not what we are normally used to. However, I think it’s great that your fiancé has such a special relationship with his sister, that he would consider it an honor that she be by his side as he makes this important step in his life.

You have a couple of options: she can be called an “honor attendant,” a “best person” or the “best woman.” Take your pick, and know that your fiancé has made a wonderful choice. The role of the honor attendant is very important and the person who is chosen for this should be someone who has a strong attachment and bond with the bride or groom. It really doesn’t matter what their gender is, it matters that their relationship is vital and strong with the person who is about to be wed.

Karl and I are African-American, I am from Atlanta and Karl is from D.C. Our wedding is in May at a historical mansion outside of Atlanta. We are having an outside ceremony and outside buffet lunch reception featuring a Caribbean-inspired menu of tropical and spring fruits, green salad with mango vinaigrette, island stewed chicken in a spicy broth with veggies and island stewed tofu in spicy broth with veggies, and rice and peas. The wedding cake is carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. We are having a DJ for the reception and I want to walk down the aisle to John Coltrane’s “Love Supreme.”

Q. Can you suggest some music options for rest of the ceremony? Should we have some live musicians for the rest of the ceremony or should we DJ the whole thing?

A. I think that live music would add a nice touch to your festivities. For the ceremony consider a selection of romantic jazz standards or some soulful r & b pieces. A good jazz ensemble could perform the Coltrane selection as well as provide all of the music for the entire event. There is something wonderfully special about live music. It adds a certain “zing” to the affair and works really well with the type of venue you have selected for your nuptials.

Q. Can you suggest some culturally-inspired favor ideas? I was thinking a little bag of grits or pecans? (Georgia?) or even something Caribbean-inspired. I like the idea of mixing cultures and traditions.

A. I love both ideas! Why not mix and mingle the two? Try using brightly patterned fabric to create a pouch for each ingredient. You can use African prints for a more cultural feel or sheer organza/tulle for a classical look. Fill each of the bags and tie with raffia (if you’ve decided to go the Afrocentric route) or a slender, gossamer ribbon for a more traditional closure. To really make this favor sparkle, include a small recipe card. Use your computer and create a mini-card that gives a wonderful recipe for hot buttered grits or a favorite of mine, pecan pie!

Q. Can you suggest some elegant and culturally-inspired centerpieces? We were thinking of roses on some tables and sugared lemons on others. What about a mixture of sugared fruits and fresh flowers?

A. I love the idea of sparkling, shimmering fruit combined with the sweet fragrance of roses and lilies. For a more cultural touch, use small drums or hollowed gourds, fill with dried flowers, aromatic herbs and spices. Wrap the entire bundle with a see-through fabric and use raffia or gilded twine to tie everything up so the beauty of this display can shine through!