Blending Cultures -- Careful Planning Is Required When Couples With Different Traditions Wed

Getting married is always a blending of at least two families and traditions, but when one member of the couple is from another country, there can be far more to meld.

From language, cultural and religious differences to guests from overseas, different foods and traditional attire, everything can become more complex.

"We decided from the beginning we would have a traditional Indian wedding," says Charu Kalyan Bogdan, whose family is from India but now lives in Bothell. She and Jeff Bogdan were married last year by a Hindu "pundit" (priest) in a service performed in Sanskrit and English. "He's the seventh child. His family already had six Catholic weddings."

But they didn't leave Jeff's family out: "We talked to our parents, listened to everyone's advice carefully. They had more wedding experience than we did," Jeff says. "Then we decided what we wanted, for our wedding."

It was quite distinct from the other weddings, says his mother, Dorothy Bogdan, who came with her husband and family from Virginia for the wedding. "We'd never been to anything like it, the beautiful silk saris the women wore, the new foods.

"We would have liked a representative of our tradition, something Catholic, but it had to be up to Jeff and Charu. This was the way they wanted it."

The wedding followed Punjabi traditions. But rather than a week or more of pre-nuptial festivities and meals, as often happens in that region of India, most events, including a women's party where the bride's hands were painted with henna designs, were held just a few days before the wedding. The ceremony was held in a "mandap," a four-postered and canopied structure built by Jeff, with the guidance of Charu's father, Jagdish Kalyan.

Programs decorated with golden filigree borders explained the ceremony, from the "Barat," welcoming of the groom's family, to "Jaymala," exchanging of garlands, and "Granthi Bandhan," where the couple's garments are tied together to signify the couple joining for life.

"It was really a learning experience for me, a good way for me, and for my family and friends, to learn more about Charu and her family's culture," says the groom. He wore a white pajamalike Indian "achkin" for the ceremony, then changed into an American tuxedo for the reception and dinner.

The bride wore a red-and-gold silk sari and headpiece for the wedding (red is the color of happiness in India), then changed to a white-and-gold Indian dress that looked more like an American wedding gown.

The reception dinner was array of Indian foods. To the couple's delight, the hotel had an Indian chef to direct the cooking. The music was a blend of Indian and more Westernized pop music.

And though most of the official wedding was Indian, many other festivities were very American, Char says. "We had wedding showers, a rehearsal dinner, a bachelor party, bridesmaids and groomsmen and a big white wedding cake. Those aren't things they do in India."

Since the Bogdans met at work, and both lived on the Eastside before their wedding, it was easy to decide to get married locally.

For Laurie Solansky Yair, who was visiting Israel when she met Yoram Yair, the wedding location was a more difficult decision.

"I would have liked to have come home to marry, but my family is split between Seattle, Oregon and the East Coast. They were more able to travel to Israel, than his to America."

Her family also was better able to bridge the language gap. "In Israel everyone speaks a little English, my family knows a little Hebrew," she says. "For his family, it would have been very difficult."

In Israel weddings usually are in hired halls. Both families are Jewish, but since Yair's family originated from Iraq, the customs, the Middle Eastern music and foods were new to Laurie and her family, whose origins are European-American.

Laurie had hoped she might get to wear an elaborate Middle Eastern dress, but was surprised to learn that today's Israeli brides almost all choose long white Western gowns and veils, which they rent.

"I let Yoram and his brother do most of the planning, it was just easier," Laurie says. "I was still learning the language, learning about the customs. When my family arrived, they fit themselves into whatever was happening. When they couldn't understand each other, they used sign language."

That's essentially what Jyun Shimizu's family did when they came from Japan for his wedding to Lisa Davenport, two years ago.

The couple met in 1990 in Japan, where she was teaching. Later he came to Seattle to study, and they decided to marry.

"We planned two weddings, American and Japanese, then learned formal weddings in Japan easily cost more than $50,000," she says. Instead, they had a country-club wedding here, and his family came. A month later, in Japan, his family hosted an informal reception.

For the wedding, Lisa wore a long white gown, Jyun, a black tuxedo. In Japan they wore dressy clothes for the reception. Then, as most Japanese couples do, they went to a portrait studio and had formal pictures taken in ornate wedding kimonos. Her outfit included a wig and large headpiece.

"The portraits were very important to us. His family had generations of similar wedding portraits," Lisa says. "We didn't want to break that tradition."

At the American wedding the ceremony was translated into Japanese by the best man, the program was in both languages, sushi was served for hors d'oeuvres, and both fathers made toasts.

At the Japanese reception, her parents couldn't go, but his family and friends gave her a warm welcome, offering toasts in English (and she responding in well-rehearsed Japanese) and serving food that they considered American, but she found to be more "French-style."

Being able to share their union, if not their complete wedding, in both countries, was an important way to start their marriage, says Lisa.

"We come from very different backgrounds," she says. "We learned a lot about each other, and about our families, by planning our marriage to include both cultures.