Recently I was asked by a bride who was planning an intercultural wedding on what language to use for the wedding ceremony.
Personally I feel that the couple should exchange the wedding vows in the language that they normally communicate to each other with because this is something special between the two people getting married. Do the guests need to understand the language of the vows to participate in this part of the ceremony? I doubt it is really necessary as most will be able to “tell” from the facial expressions what had just been exchanged between the bride and groom.
I remembered being in weddings where the translator was repeating after the pastor and the couple down to the "I do". This makes for very long and sometimes boring ceremony. In my opinion, a better alternative is to have a bilingual program for the guests to follow themselves.
Without a wedding program, you will risk losing the attention of the guests who do not know what is going on, especially if the wedding ceremony involves cultural or religious customs that the guests may not understand. Most guests want to celebrate different cultures but they can only do so if they know why certain things are done during the ceremony.
Another one of my personal favorite things to do is to choose music and readings for the ceremony in both languages if possible. This is also a great time to involve those special people in your life and let them participate in the ceremony together with you. For example, if your older aunt can only speak Chinese but your wedding is in English, wouldn't it be great if she can participate by reading a Bible passage or even a poem in Chinese during the ceremony?
Finally, if you do decide to go full translation route on everything, please be mindful of the length of the ceremony. After all, you don't really want the guests to start thinking "when is this going to end?", right?
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