Know it all, Latin wedding traditions that you’ll love

If the 2010 Hollywood blockbuster, “Our Family Wedding” is anything to go by, Latino weddings stick to certain traditions that they will never compromise for any reason. If you are invited to a Latino wedding for the first time, there are certain situations you must be prepared to encounter at the wedding ceremony.

You should expect a Latino wedding to take place in a catholic church as Latinos always display their catholic affiliation with pride. The bride and groom will most definitely receive gold coins for nuptial good luck and the most important occurrence to expect is that there will be an endless list of extended family members in attendance. From the mother’s side, the father’s side, friends, neighbors, cousins and even acquaintances that have been around for so long they have come to be known as family.

Latino weddings happen at night so expect the cocktail reception to start around 7 p.m. while dinner will probably commence around 11:00 p.m. The energetic Latino dance begins at midnight where everyone present whether young or old is expected to slug it out on the dance floor for almost the whole night. This is usually followed by the Hora Loca; the most entertaining part of the wedding where the bride and groom reappear at the reception with costumes, glow sticks, hats, beaded necklaces, sunglasses and other random souvenirs that everyone puts on to take photographs.

The period of celebratory dance marks a close similarity between Latino weddings and Nigerian weddings because the couple is encouraged to dance so intensely to Latino music (a must in Latino weddings) while guests celebrate them with cash, in traditional Latino weddings, the guests approaches the bride and groom pinning money to the bride’s dress.

Another distinction in Latino wedding is that rather than a bouquet, everyone circles the wedding cake to pull a ribbon out from it. One of the ribbons will have a ring attached to the end of it and whoever is the lucky winner that pulls out that special ribbon is next to get married, isn’t this quite interesting?

Celebration continues nonstop even after the bride and groom have left the reception.