Do you and your partner share the same love, but diverse cultural or spiritual backgrounds? Has it sometimes felt like a dilemma trying to accommodate different family expectations? Christchurch-based marriage and civil union celebrant Franzisca Doser shares how she dealt with those questions on her own wedding journey.
‘I grew up in small-town Germany, where I was raised to attend Roman-Catholic church every Sunday. The love of my life, Naz, is a Fijian Indian man who prescribes to the Muslim faith. Suffice to say we’ve always had very different ideas of what getting married meant to us (and our families).
‘Mid-2020, after our engagement party, we found ourselves at a crossroads: on one hand, we wanted to wait and plan a white wedding that my family from Germany could attend after the pandemic, and on the other hand we were experiencing high expectations from Naz’s family to solemnise our long-term relationship in accordance with the Qur’an. Such a wedding ceremony is called Nikah; it involves beautiful rituals, extravagant clothing and jewellery, faith-based vows and of course lots of delicious food.
‘At first, Naz and I thought about connecting the Nikah festivities with a Western civil wedding, but we discarded these plans quickly as it didn’t feel like we were doing either of our cultures enough justice. Instead, we decided that we would go ahead with the Nikah but wait for my white-dress moment and the marriage-related legalities until my parents could be here. We therefore found ourselves planning a cultural wedding ceremony, without planning to get married in the legal sense.
‘A Nikah involves exchanging the vow to offer oneself to the other. For Naz this act felt more sacred than completing the aspects of a Western civil wedding, although he still believed in the validity of legal paperwork. I remember him looking at me and saying, “At the end of the day, we get to choose what this means to us.”
‘Previously I had assumed that a marriage was only “real” when it was recognised by the law. Fortunately, my journey with Naz taught me first-hand that the meanings we allocate to rituals, symbolism and tradition are so much more important.
‘Our Nikah ceremony took place in late 2020 and was unbelievably beautiful. I knew from the moment we exchanged the faith-based vows that we had become husband and wife, and I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.
‘So, what did getting married mean to us? It meant that we offered ourselves to one another, in the name of Naz’s culture and religion. It meant that we accepted that the act of marriage was fluid, and flexible, and could encompass a myriad of different rituals. And finally, it meant that we didn’t make any compromises because we chose to honour both our cultural backgrounds fully.
‘As a celebrant, navigating – and honouring – cultural diversity and family expectations throughout my own wedding plans has given me an appreciation for the complexities that couples on a similar journey may face. It has also taught me the importance of exploring meaning.’
