Bilingual Wedding Help???

Hi! Nice to meet another bilingual couple. My situation is much easier than yours, but similar in some ways. My family is Dutch, but they do all speak English quite well. So we don't HAVE to translate anything, but we chose to incorporate both languages in the ceremony to make everyone feel involved and because it feels more personal to me. What kind of ceremony are you having? We have a celebrant, which again makes things easier luckily as she is very flexible and tries to think of solutions with us. The plan now is that my mother will translate what she says when my father gives me away, and he answers in Dutch. I know you said there are lots of reasons why you don't want to ask anyone to do that, but just in case there's someone who would be appropriate but you're worried about making them do something as a guest - I'm my experience people are honoured if you ask this, as it kind of makes them part of the wedding, just like when you ask someone to do a reading. So maybe worth rethinking..? There will be one reading in Dutch and one in English, both will be translated in the order of service. We will say our vows in both languages, not sure exactly how yet, maybe we'll alternate or I will do Dutch and he will do English (although I'm also thinking the other way around would be pretty cool!). Maybe this could be a nice touch for you guys as well, even though you don't speak Portuguese you could probably learn a few lines, right? Of course the legal bit has to be in English but you could add your own vows after that. For the speeches I have the same plan as you, although probably I'll only translate my father's speech from Dutch to English as the Dutch people won't have as much trouble following an English speech. Not sure if that helps at all but always happy to chat anyway!

Oh and yes I wouldn't worry about instructions like 'please be upstanding', people will surely get that from what's happening around them! I'd just translate the meaningful bits in the order of service.

I agree with what's already been said if you can do it. Alternatively I'm wondering how much it would cost to have an interpreter hired. Someone who would repeat some of the wedding or the speeches. I attended a Jewish wedding along with a few other people who don't speak Hebrew. Of course I didn't get to sit with my partner either. They had someone who acted as interpreter for the whole wedding. It wasn't odd or annoying it worked really well.

I went to a wedding recently where the groom's family were Spanish. Some of them didn't speak any English but they were able to understand and follow the day nonetheless. The groom did his speech in English and then repeated it in Spanish which was a lovely touch.

Having someone translate, whether an interpreter or a guest, is a great idea. There are plenty of interfaith weddings where a rabbi and a priest, for example, will conduct the ceremony together, and this is along similar lines. My grandmother went deaf in her old age so doesn't know sign language so we are planning on printing out the words from the ceremony and speeches for her.

I am having a billingual wedding next week, I am English and my H2B is French.

In terms of language issues I will make you a list of what we have come up with to ease the day for everyone:

Ceremony:

We are going to say our vows in English but then in the part where you can add your own vows we are just repeating the same vows again but in French. This is slightly easier for us as we both speak fluent French/English.

We are having both an English and French reading and the translations of these have been provided in the opposite language in our order of service so everyone can feel included.

We have also got an order of the day printed in both languages.

Speeches:

This has been the trickiest issue as like you I wanted to have the speeches translated. But as it got closer to the wedding I didn't really want to read my dad's speech before the day. We also didn't want the speeches to drag on for very long as they can get quite boring for some people. To get around this we are now having the speeches between each course of the sit down meal so that my H2B can interpret the speech for his parents to understand while we are waiting for the next part of the meal.

Communication:

This is the hardest thing but we have seated our French guests with other people who speak the same language but who also speak English. As a languages teacher I say 'A smile means the same in every language'!

Feel free to ask anymore questions as this has been quite a task for us to think about, but fingers crossed in a weeks time it will have all gone to plan!

We're having a civil ceremony in the reception venue. The problem is, the only two guests who speak both English and Portuguese fluently would not be our first choices to do translation. His friend is lovely but extremely shy and has already said he doesn't want to do it but will if he has to; and my OH's brother is both very quiet and very...singular. We've discussed it and are really not keen to have either of them do it. It's not really as much about asking guests to do it- it's just the only two guests who would be able to.

I do speak some Portuguese (its similarity to Spanish is very high) so I can say some things and I almost always understand what's being said, so I could definitely say vows in Portuguese; thanks for the idea! I'll suggest it.

Jayne E that sounds like a very Orthodox wedding! (I'm converting to Judaism at the moment, but it's hard to find synagogues outside London and I doubt my conversion will be finished before the wedding. Plus, my fiance doesn't want to convert so it's just easier to have a civil ceremony). I hadn't thought about an interpreter! I'll find out how much they are. Hopefully there will be one near York or who will travel...

Karen84 he's thinking of doing that, but my OH is quite shy and might not be giving a speech at all. If I give one I'm not confident enough with my Portuguese yet to do a whole speech, but I guess I could try?

MrsP2Be86 I think my main issue will be cost! We have a reasonably strict budget. I did a languages degree and so know a fair few interpreters (helpfully, none of them speak Portuguese...) and if they lived in the area said they would charge upwards of £300, plus extra depending on how long they were needed!

I'm not sure how distracting an interpreter would be, too I'm probably worrying needlessly but worrying needlessly is a speciality of mine!

These are all great ideas! The only problem with my fiance's family is there are around 20 of them, with only my fiance and his older brother being fluent in English. His younger brother speaks a little and his dad is pretty good, but the rest of them speak none at all. His parents are also divorced (fairly messily) so I'm trying to juggle family dramas, language barriers..........

The other issue I've just remembered is that we're having a family barbecue the day before. There won't be any formalities to be translated, it's more that the sides of the family won't be able to talk to each other! I can't get an interpreter because that's just too many people to do it for; and none of my family speak a word of any other language (some of my fiance's family also speak French) so I'm a bit stuck on what to do with that, too

Help me hitched-wan-kenobi. You're my only hope.

If the two Portuguese speakers are not an option, what about one of the Spanish speakers? I know the languages are different, but if it was written down ahead of time do you think they would be able to read it without stumbling or mispronouncing things? That's all you really need. Although I do like the idea that was mentioned about having some elements in Portuguese and some in English and just having the translations written down.

Regarding the BBQ. It's unfortunate they won't all be able to mingle and chat freely but how about making a game of it. Write a card for everyone in both languages.with various comments. Hello. Its very nice to meet you. Your dess is lovely. Etc etc. Encourage people to try out a few of the sayings. If you can get them to laugh together it breaks the Ice just as much. When our Spanish friends didn't really speak English and we had no more than hola in Spanish with much laughter and tears and hand signs we managed a little and always were laughing we never got together without our English / Spanish dictionaries.

Sounds like a good idea for a wedding favour. Give everyone a Portuguese/english dictionary lol.

Depends on your guests but... Maybe with the BBQ you could play some stupid team games to break the ice? Like a big egg and spoon relay race with lots of different teams racing who all have a mixture of language guests for example (or other such childish fun!). They wouldn't need to speak to each other but would hopefully get everyone laughing together! Although wouldn't work so well if you were going for a more formal event :-P x

My sister is married to a Portuguese guy, unfortunately not many of his family could make the wedding as they had it in England but they didn't really do any translations.

The ceremony was all in English, and my family did their readings & speeches in English, and my brother in laws Mum did a reading & small speech in Portuguese, my brother in law explaining the general gist to the majority of non Portuguese speaking guests.

We spend a large amount of time with his family every year when we holiday in Portugal, and most of my family can't speak Portuguese and his can't speak English but we all manage to have a fabulous time, it just works - I would try not to worry too much, people can understand the feelings in the words despite the language barriers xxx

My SIL married a Portuguese and there were no problems as the event just flowed, even though many of his family had limited English....You can put too much worry in to this part of your day.

Keep the white Port flowing and all will work out well!!!!

I had a bad accident in Portugal many years ago and admire their people immensely as they saved my life....

Peter

I've been the Master of Ceremonies at quite a few weddings where one of the families did not speak the language of the other and very few (if any) spoke both yet at none of those weddings did it impact on the fun they had.

Here's a few examples of some things I've seen at weddings.

An Italian/English wedding they had a lady interpret the speeches to and from English/italian. - It went down a treat.

A Chinese/English wedding - The father-of-the-brides speech was delivered in Chinese and at the same time an English translation was shown on a giant screen for all the guests to follow.

A French/Italian wedding - I'm not fluent in either language but for the main announcements and introductions I needed to make I had them written down in both languages and just practiced them before the wedding and delivered them on the day. Remember the MC is not delivering great monologues and so many of the things needed to be covered could be handled in this way and many competent MCs wouldn't have a problem with this.

You wouldn't have to worry about translating a whole speech. I would just rehearse a couple of phrases that you can use. They would certainly appreciate the effort.

A bilingual wedding would not be so easy to organize but not impossible. You need to find a person who can moderate the whole wedding and knows both languages and that way it will be much easier and everyone will feel good. Obviously, spouses also need to know at a simple level of speech in order to get along with guests. For example, this site https://englishlinx.com can help you because it personally helped me a lot to learn English, especially at the beginning, when it was quite difficult for me.