NEW YORK, NY.- Early in the planning process, Kristina Trejo was steadfast about the type of entertainment she wanted at her wedding. As a first-generation Mexican American from Culver City, California, she thought certain details should pay tribute to her cultural heritage, including — and perhaps especially — the music.

“The mariachi was a way for me to honor, deep down, who I am,” said Trejo, 29, an event planner and the founder of Viva Planning and Event Design. “I’m very proud of where my parents come from.”

When she told her parents she intended to hire a mariachi, a traditional Mexican band, for her wedding at South Coast Winery Resort and Spa in Temecula, California, on June 23, to Anthony Salguero, 28, a project manager at the construction management firm Bernards, they both had “very emotional” reactions.

“My mom didn’t get to have the typical white-dress wedding, so for her to be able to experience it through her firstborn, that was very special to her,” Trejo said. “My dad actually wanted that to be his gift, so my dad gifted us the mariachi for the day.”

Leslie Tate wasn’t even sure that she wanted a wedding to begin with. She and Sean Tate, then her fiance, considered eloping and keeping their nuptials casual. But when they decided to plan a party after all, mariachi was the one requirement for the bride so she could incorporate her Mexican culture into the festivities.

“I know I had the band booked before I even had my dress,” said Leslie Tate, 26, a designer based in Marietta, Georgia. “I wanted to somehow pay homage to my background and heritage.”

As loved ones took the lead on planning the last-minute ceremony and reception, her only requests were “a mariachi band and vanilla cake.” She married Sean Tate, 30, owner of a vintage shop, Collected Atlanta, in Marietta, on Oct. 1, 2022, at Events On Main in Canton, Georgia.

“I was more excited about that mariachi band and having that representation because my husband is African American and our families are coming together,” Leslie Tate said. “I feel like that’s what made the wedding. Without the band, I don’t know if it would’ve been the same.”

The Rhythm of a Culture

Mariachi, as a word, has multiple meanings. The term can stand for the specific genre of music, for the ensemble playing it or for an individual group member.

A mariachi musician “plays in a mariachi band playing mariachi music,” said Estevan Azcona, 51, an assistant professor at the Southwest Center at the University of Arizona who has taught ethnomusicology and Chicano and Latino music, history and culture for more than 20 years.

In a mariachi, musicians play various string instruments — guitar, guitarron, violin and, on occasion, harp — along with trumpets and, depending on the size of the ensemble, drums. Typically, there are one or two lead vocalists. The energized rhythms combine to produce an intense, infectious and distinct sound.

“Singing is part and parcel of what we have congealed in our imagination as traditional mariachi; this, of course, alongside the stylized charro, charra or charrx attire the musicians typically wear,” said Laura Gutiérrez, 55, an associate professor of Latinx studies at the University of Texas at Austin. “A talented mariachi can make any song in the tradition of mariachi. Because of this openness, I think everyone feels invited into the celebration, and we all feel welcomed.”

The music’s origins can be traced to central Mexico, largely around Jalisco. The folk music that developed in the region hybridized Indigenous, African and Spanish rhythms.

Mariachi culture also has roots in Nayarit, Colima and parts of Michoacán, Azcona said.

“It is one of numerous regional traditions that emerged during the colonial era into those early decades of independence,” he said. “It was music of the people, of the community.”

Over time, mariachi became synonymous with celebration, a soundtrack for festivities including baptisms, birthdays, graduations and weddings. And what was once primarily a word-of-mouth enterprise is now finding fresh avenues for business, thanks to a new generation of musicians turning to social media.

To date, Mariachi Reyes, a father-son-daughter trio based in the New York City borough of Queens, has garnered more than 10 million likes and nearly 165,000 followers on TikTok. The group receives regular direct messages inquiring about its mariachi services.

Albert Reyes, 25, remembers having a conversation with his younger sister, Jazmin, 17, about how they might continue the family business. Their father, Santiago, 49, has been a mariachi since he was 13. Now, the three perform as a group full time.

“I knew that there had to be faces to the mariachi,” Albert Reyes said. “You need to be known a little bit more. A lot of the comments, if they talk about one of us, it’s like ‘the father’ or ‘the daughter’ or ‘the son’ — they know us as a family.”

A New Take on Tradition

Trejo’s vendor search led her to Mariachi Tierra Mia, a mixed-gender mariachi based in Los Angeles.

“Mariachi is incredibly traditional, but I wanted a little twist: a mariachi group that had a female lead, because it’s typically very male dominated,” Trejo said. “Another really important thing was to find a group that could feel comfortable doing things that were untraditional for mariachi.”

Maira Solis, 30, is a violinist and the director of Mariachi Tierra Mia. Since its establishment in 2017, Solis estimated, the group has performed at more than 200 weddings.

For the wedding of Trejo and Salguero, Solis worked closely with the couple to customize their music selection. They chose a few contemporary songs, such as Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me),” which the mariachi played after the couple exchanged vows and kissed.

“We typically find a popular piece of the song and loop it,” Solis said. “Once the ceremony was done: ‘I want to dance with somebody, I want to dance with somebody.’ We kept doing that as they kept walking out, and we would alternate that with a trumpet solo because they wanted to keep the high energy.”

Angela Lopez, 28, collaborated with the mariachi at her wedding on Oct. 28, 2022, in Aguascalientes, Mexico, using a slightly different approach. She chose to take part in the performance herself.

“It was a surprise,” said Lopez, a photographer and content creator. “I love mariachi music. Our family’s very musical, so it was really, really important for me to sing to my husband with the mariachi.”

The bride serenaded her husband, Daniel Garnica, 28, with two classic Mexican love songs: “Hermoso Cariño,” by Vicente Fernandez, and Christian Nogales’ rendition of “Si Nos Dejan,” by Luis Miguel.

“The feeling of when you hear mariachi — the music, the instruments — it softens the people’s hearts and it brings some sort of comfort,” Lopez said. “It makes you feel like you’re in a movie.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.