Mexican wedding sentiments

My nephew is marrying a Mexican woman later this month. I’m going to make a card to go with her shower present (shower is Saturday) and a card for the wedding present.

I’d like the card for the shower to be the sort of card she might get for a shower in Mexico. I’m thinking the wedding card might be bilingual. My original thought was to have the sentiments in English, but use a Mexican artwork depicting a wedding; unfortunately every Mexican wedding art piece I found online is a Day of the Dead wedding – and let’s face it, smiling skulls don’t seem that appropriate.

  1. Do you think this is a good idea? My thought is that doing this will underline that we are welcoming her into the family. For complicated reasons, I don’t think my brother and sister-in-law (parents of the nephew) will necessarily do a good job of this.

  2. If it is a good idea, what should the cards say? I suck at languages, so it’s not like I can decide what I’d like to say and then translate it. Plus, if there are traditional Mexican wedding sentiments, I’d like to go with the tradition.

¡Felicidades!

Sorry, we just reuse the same expression for everything, if speaking in general terms. If there are specific things you’d like translated, give 'em to us and any of the bilingual folks here will be happy to assist.

Thanks, Nava! I’ll definitely use ¡Felicidades! on the shower card.

Looking at the cards I’ve made for other nieces/nephews for the wedding, I’ve said, “May your lives together be filled with joy and laughter.” Would you (or some other Doper) be so kind as to translate to Spanish?

I would say
que vuestras vidas estén llenas de felicidad y alegría

which backtranslated would be more like “joy and happiness”; alegría y felicidad flows better when said out loud. The more literal version would be felicidad y risas but it sounds funny to me (it’s plural because it means having many occasions to laugh).

You can stick
ojalá (valid for all numbers)
espero (singular)
esperamos (plural)
in front if you want. They’re all expressions of hope.

Since I’m from Spain you may also want to wait a few hours so our LA correspondents can critique my offerings :slight_smile:

Mrs Iggy (Colombian) would not use *vuestras *, instead favoring sus. Some Latin American countries eschew the second person plural (vosotros) forms.

So modifying Nava’s greeting it would be:
que sus vidas estén llenas de felicidad y alegría

Ran this by a Mexican-American colleague to be sure. From the look on her face it was very clear that Mexicans do not use vuestras. Go with *sus *instead.

I took all the Spanish courses my community college had to offer, and 3 courses of conversational Spanish after that. PLEASE understand, I am NOT trying to nitpick native speakers, especially concerning a culture with which I have very little familiarity. :o

So, just curious - but since the nephew is family, and the goal is to welcome the woman in, would it also be permissible to use the familiar? :confused:

“Tuyos,” if memory serves. (And it may not. It’s been years!)

Mexican woman, right here.

This is nice.

and add

Les desea, con mucho amor, Anny Middon

Which translated means;

May your lives be full of happiness and joy,

I wish for you, with much love, Anny Middon

I really like this – but can you edit a bit so that it translates to “We wish for you, with much love” – card will be from both me and hubby.

Thanks so much!

If from both of you, just change desea to deseamos

que sus vidas estén llenas de felicidad y alegría

les deseamos, con mucho amor, Anny Middon

The greeting the OP is looking for calls for the genitive… a possessive pronoun modifying another noun. That takes the sus pronoun in the third person plural in Spanish.

sus vidas = your lives
If it was not modifying a noun then the tuyo/suyo form would be appropriate.

El libro es tuya = The book is yours.

Thanks, Iggy! :slight_smile:

I don’t think I would do anything different than I would if she were NOT Mexican. Send a tasteful card to welcome her to your family.