Oaxaqueña weddings are something to behold: a wild affair of fireworks and mezcal, featuring marching bands and dancers noisily tramping through the centre of Oaxaca de Juárez. In these public parades, called calendas, women spin with baskets of fruit and flowers on their heads; men on stilts walk giraffe-like across the cobbled streets; figures with scarecrow faces shake their technicolour rags as they follow in tow. Towering papier-mâché effigies of the bride and groom bob up and down on wooden poles in the midst of all of this, a fabric globe embroidered with the dearly beloveds’ names twirling between them.
It’s an exhilarating mishmash of Catholic ceremony with the much older traditions of the region’s sixteen or so indigenous groups. It’s also a more affordable choice for destination weddings, clocking in at around $8,000, as opposed to the average US equivalent, which soars way north of the $30,000 mark. This combination of relatively reasonable prices and explosive local colour has earned Oaxaca de Juárez its place as one of Mexico’s most popular wedding destinations.
But this is where things get tricky. Among Mexico’s poorest regions, Oaxaca’s rich cultural traditions have been hard won. For hundreds of years, it has been forced to stand up to oppression from Mexico’s colonisers who, to put it mildly, weren’t very accepting of the region’s practices. Famously, the state of Oaxaca bore Mexico’s first indigenous president, Benito Juárez, and there is a lot of pride associated with the Oaxaqueña identity.
In some ways, these weddings serve as microcosms for Oaxaca’s problems regarding its indigenous identity. Because while the town is an affordable destination for gringos, or the chilangos flying down from Mexico City, a traditional Oaxaqueña wedding in the city centre is not a realistic option for most of the state’s Zapotec or Mixtec residents, from whom many of the traditions were born. I was surprised by the number of white-faced puppets hoisted above the dark-skinned dancers and band members, often accompanied by distinctly Waspish names on the spinning globes: one read “Daniel and Clare”, as I recall. It’s a state of affairs that suggests Oaxaca’s indigenous ceremonies have been commodified, the cultural practitioners playing support roles in the extravagant nuptials of the white-skinned, moneyed classes.
One 2018 article from a San Francisco-based woman describes her choosing Oaxaca largely because its calendas are similar to the expensive New Orleans brass band processions, which she had always dreamed of having at her wedding. (That’s not to mention that its “colourfully painted colonial facades” also reminded her of the US city.) In 2015, in an analogous ceremony in Chiapas – another of Mexico’s poorest states, which sits to the south of Oaxaca – the state’s rich white governor came under fire for using 100 indigenous women as something approximating human props, paid to throw white rose petals into the air to mark the union between him and his wife.
There’s always a difficult line to toe when it comes to cultural appropriation and its criticism. It would be easy to argue that whenever money moves from wealthier to poorer hands, it’s a good thing. And there’s nothing wrong with appreciating another’s culture. But seeing it in this light alone this would mean ignoring the position of dependence that many indigenous groups have been forced into. The structure of these premium wedding-planning organisations sees the lion’s share of profits go to wealthy outsiders: Oaxacan Destination Weddings is run by Holly and Friederike, from the US and Germany; Equis O-Eventos is led by Gisele, a Mexico City-born woman who paid the wildly expensive international fees for postgraduate study at the London School of Economics. Meanwhile, communities behind the traditions are paid nominal sums to offer their cultural inheritance up in the form of “authentic experiences” to people who don’t have any real relationship with them, beyond the money in their wallet.
Of course, the appeal is undeniable. I decided to write on the subject simply because the weddings look spectacular; the photos were great. And there might be an argument to say that it’s the lucrative wedding industry that’s keeping many of these traditions alive. But that feels a little too close to saying zoos are good because they keep certain animals alive – it’s missing the point. As I researched the topic and recalled my unease at hearing English spoken as the first language at a number of these parades, I was forced to ask myself: Would it be justifiable to have a Oaxaqueña wedding, calenda and all, when I have no deep ties with the region? The answer, ultimately, was no. Sorry folks, but it goes a step further than distasteful. I’ll see you in The Bahamas instead.