Planning a destination wedding comes with exciting possibilities—but for some couples, it also entails a meaningful responsibility: honoring both the bride and groom’s heritage. For bride Danielle and her partner Osaheni, blending cultures was at the heart of their wedding celebrations. She and her husband welcomed 180 guests to Cancun, Mexico, for an unforgettable wedding weekend. With two unique ceremonies and receptions—one honoring her Jamaican roots and the other his Nigerian traditions—they found beautiful ways to embrace both sides of their story. Here, Danielle shares her top 7 tips for couples planning their multicultural destination weddings.

Communicate Early With Family

Multicultural weddings come with love, legacy, and often familial opinions. Danielle and her husband started conversations early during the planning process to avoid surprises.

“For Nigerian culture, we definitely sat down with all the aunties and uncles and wrote everything down,” says Danielle. By contrast, the elements for celebrating Jamaican culture were“a lot more flexible.”

Know Your Non-Negotiables and Flexible Wedding Traditions

Every culture comes with a range of rituals, but in multicultural weddings, there’s pressure to “do it all” and not favor one heritage over the other. That’s where some honest prioritization comes into play. Danielle and her husband focused on traditions that must be done and compromised on the flexible ones. For them, it included Nigerian gifts and attire with Jamaican food and music.

“Do what you can,” says Danielle. “You’re going to have to make modifications, but try to do as much research as you can, and talk to as many people as you can. Then, decide as a couple what needs to happen.”

Consider Embracing the Local Culture

When planning a destination wedding, incorporating the local culture can enhance the experience of your wedding celebrations. Danielle and her husband took full advantage of their Cancun location by embracing the vibrant Mexican culture, allowing it to complement their Jamaican and Nigerian heritages.

“The all-white welcome dinner was very authentically Mexican,” says Danielle. “We had a lot of different streamers, a piñata, tacos, and mole.”

Layer Cultures and Traditions in Creative Ways

Instead of keeping traditions separate in multicultural destination weddings, look for ways to fuse them into meaningful, cohesive experiences. Whether it’s a mix of music, shared attire changes, a merged ceremony style, or cuisine, blending your backgrounds makes the celebration uniquely yours.

“We had Bob Marley playing when I walked down the aisle in the Nigerian wedding,” says Danielle. “We had chicken, black cake, Jamaican food, and the DJ was my cousin who played a lot of Jamaican music throughout.”

Educate Your Vendors

When it comes to any wedding, vendors are your creative team, and multicultural weddings are no different. Provide your vendors with background and details of the traditions you plan to incorporate in your wedding and the significance behind them. When your planners understand the vision, they can support you with more sensitivity, creativity, and intention.

For example, Danielle says her planner “was able to listen through the Nigerian spiel and what we needed. She was very cool and she worked hand in hand with my Jamaican wedding planner.” 

Consider Separate Celebrations

While you can opt to layer the various cultural traditions in one stand-alone event, the beauty of hosting a destination wedding is that you don’t always HAVE to. With a whole weekend to work with, you’ll have more time to plan separate events devoted to one culture at a time.

“We had a Nigerian wedding on Saturday and then the typical white wedding on Sunday,” says Danielle. “I’ve been to several Jamaican weddings, and unlike Nigerian culture, it’s not a scripted format when it comes to weddings.”

Use the Planning Process to Strengthen Family Bonds

For Danielle, wedding planning was also a way to deepen ties with her then-fiancé’s family and learn more about Nigerian culture herself. 

“It made me closer to his family and they see you trying to incorporate their culture, and they appreciate that,” says Danielle.

Multicultural destination weddings offer the perfect chance to honor both partners’ backgrounds and symbolize the melding of two cultures into one household. Danielle’s story reminds us to stay true to what matters most to you as a couple, and to let your wedding reflect the beauty of your shared journey.