New Bride to be

First decide a rough guest list and contact halls and ask for pricing/menu/bar packages and then you guys need to decide what type of wedding ceremony you're having ie catholic, hindu, Muslim etc. then you can book your other vendors like photo, video, dress, decor, suits, flowers, wedding planner, DJ etc. but once you have the hall and ceremony booked it will be much easier when you contact all the other vendors

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Hi Jurrene! Thank you for telling me your ideas and how you are going to do it! Sounds like it will be beautiful. Sitting down with him will definitely be the best way to do it.

Thank you again for the advice

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Wow really sounds like you know what you are talking about!

Thank you so much!

Wow thats so awesome! Thank you so much, I will be sure to use this list!

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Awesome! Thank you so much!

Fusion wedding plans sounds great.

Your wedding can go 2 ways as to celebrate:

1. 2 days of wedding one after another. One day can be Nigerian and the next Civil followed by Reception. The budget will go over based on how simple you keep both and if you think about rentals even for the dress.

2. Combining your wedding ceremonies into 1 and the Nigerian traditions included in some part allowing the Officiant complying in your marriage. The budget for this wedding will not be as much due to the outfits worn to celebrate the cultures and traditions into your day.

As our Officiant did allow our fusion wedding of option 2, there were 3 traditions put into the wedding as it put my Indian culture with the Canadian traditions. One step wasn't done due to circumstances. I hope this helps you to find your peace of mind and chance to know what you would like to do and how.

Hi Allyah,

Congratulations on your engagement. You must be filled with all the happiness in the world.

I agree with Tori. It’ll be good to start with planning your budget, guest list, date and venues (outside or inside, change in location or all in one location, ceremony outside and reception inside, etc).

As for having a multi-cultural wedding I can tell you what I have planned since mine will be multi cultural as well. My entire family is from a Caribbean background (St. kitts & Nevis) and my FH is African (Moroccan & Sudanese). We plan to incorporate both cultures by doing different things. I’ll be doing Henna on my hands and feet and I’ll also be changing into a traditional Moroccan dress for part of my reception (He will wear the male version of it). This will tick things off for my FH side. For my side my mom will be doing a Caribbean folk dance performance from our island and I’ll also have a live steel pan drummer during my processional+ceremony.

I think just sitting with your FH and you both decided what you want to bring to the wedding from both cultures will help you mix them together nicely. Lots of discussions on wedding wire as well to help you get many ideas. Happy planning☺️

Hi Allyah!

As everyone else has said too, congrats on the engagement and welcome!

If it's a culturally mixed wedding, you and your FH should maybe sit down and chat about what is important/must have for you in the ceremony. There may be a lot of traditions on both sides, but only a small number you both really feel strongly about keeping. It'd be a good starting point for the actual ceremony part as well.

I'd also recommend finding out your budget and guest count number then using that to figure out the venue and get your date booked out...because the first questions out of every other vendors mouths will be "Where is the venue?" and "What's the date?"....lol.

I don't know about in Alberta, but, in NS, photographers book out REALLY fast (like 18 or more months in advance). I would recommend putting that near the top of your list first things to cross off first.

:-) Congrats again!

I agree with both Tori and Casey! All of the ladies on WeddingWire are phenomenal and always willing to help out.

I know there have been some recent brides to be posting about multi cultural weddings - try searching the community forums for those posts. Here's one that's pretty recent, maybe you can even chat with the bride! Multi Cultural Wedding Forum

My wedding features my FH who is Polish-Canadian, and I'm Canadian, I wouldn't consider our wedding that multi cultural because most of the traditions we both have are the same. Some of the Polish traditions we are also cutting out because I'm not religious, or his family doesn't want to do them (i.e. family blessing before the wedding).

My FH and I sat down and decided what we wanted to include and what had to be included (i.e. prayer before dinner) and that's how we kind of mixed the two together. The only one we're on the fence on still is the salt/water tradition - you get two shot glasses, one has water and one has vodka; the bride and groom each pick one and whoever gets the vodka "wears the pants" in the marriage. It's cute but we'll see how much time we have!

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Thank you! I have found the checklist pretty helpful so far. Thank you for the advice!

Congrats on your engagement, and welcome to Wedding Wire.

Honestly being on here is the best first step you could make! Start with the checklist on wedding wire, its a great guideline to help you get started.

Start with a budget, and your projected guest count, and that will help you out with finding a venue.

Participate in any discussions that are posted, the ladies on here are super helpfuL!

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Thank You! Okay awesome, that sounds like important things to start doing. Thank You for the advice

Hi Allyah - congrats on the engagement and welcome to the wedding wire community!!

Not sure on how to incorporate two cultures as my wedding (in 5 days) is just a big party and isn't incorporating any religion or customs really - but first thing first, figure out what your priorities are!

Would you say that; budget, guest count, location, date is the most important? With that info you can start going to look at venues and pick one! The rest will fall into place after you get the venue.