Tradition and innovation meld as Quinceañera Expo showcases businesses serving Minnesota’s Latino communities

Delilah Star Bustos Segura, accompanied by her mother and sister, stopped by several booths at the DoubleTree by Hilton in Bloomington to admire a chocolate fountain, a mirrored photo booth and sparkling tiaras.

But what most interested Bustos Segura was the runway walk featuring Minnesota’s hottest quinceañera dresses.

“The dress,” she said, smiling. “I want it my way, how I’ve always imagined it since I was a little girl.”

Bustos Segura, 14, was among scores of teens and their family members attending this year’s Minnesota Quinceañera Expo, which showcased small businesses that cater to quinceañera parties.

Gloria Herrera founded the expo five years ago after the coming-of-age tradition celebrated by generations of Latino families in the U.S. and abroad began to surge in popularity in Minnesota. A quinceañera celebrates a girl’s 15th birthday, marking her passage from girlhood to womanhood.

Herrera acknowledged that there’s currently a shadow over such festivities — concerns among some about President Donald Trump’s increasingly harsh and erratic immigration policies.

“There’s still that fear,” Herrera said. “It does affect us a little bit.”

This year’s expo had fewer business booths than usual, she said. But it’s early in the party season, and other factors such as higher prices on many consumer goods and services could account for some of the dip in demand.

Quinceañera celebrations typically depend on businesses that also cater to weddings, said Luis Raúl Solorio Cisneros, owner of Sonido D-Kache Mn, a party-planning business in Inver Grove Heights. Party staples include an extravagant, brightly colored, bell-shaped dress; a catered meal; a reception with music and dancing, and a religious ceremony.

Minnesota’s quinceañera season starts in the spring and runs through early fall, he said. Most girls plan their parties around their birth dates, but girls with cold-month birthdays often wait until it’s warmer to celebrate.

Solorio Cisneros said he’s not seeing as many bookings this season, but he hopes the warmer months bring more clients.

Quinceañeras now make up more than two-thirds of his booked events, he said. A decade ago, he was lucky to hit double digits in bookings. In the years since, quinceañera bookings have outpaced weddings. Last year, he saw 45 such events.

Meantime, social media trends have become a driving force for businesses that offer services for quinceañera celebrations, spurring them to innovate and add novel features.

Solorio Cisneros offers DJ services and party rentals, but said his main focus now is on bringing new and interesting concepts to local parties — everything from dancing robots to a mirror man. Lately, he’s seen lots of rentals for his “dancing in the clouds” stage, which features fog and pyro machines to prettily shroud an LED dance floor, he said.

Sam Leon, chief operating officer of Acapulco Mexican Restaurants of Minnesota, has spent 25 years offering catering services for parties. Leon said his business is on pace to match last year’s number of parties.

But the amount of money that clients are willing to spend could affect his revenue. Leon said he’s noticed that as couples try to save money amid rising costs, weddings have started to trend toward simpler celebrations favoring home-cooked meals instead of more expensive “bougie” weddings and decor.

But for quinceañeras, it’s still the opposite.

“You got 15-year-olds, and they want their party to be superior, and they want it to be the best, and so that shows a little bit more — they want nice things because they want more of an experience,” Leon said.

At the start of the year, Leon and business partner Lindsay Banderas opened Michoacana La Korita in St. Paul to offer customizable snack carts increasingly popular at quinceañera celebrations.

Herrera, a party planner for the past 10 years, said quinceañera businesses in Minnesota have had to adapt to serve a clientele outside of their traditional Latino community.

“In this country, there’re many cultures, so to do these types of events [here], it becomes a mix of cultures,” Herrera said. “Quinceañeras are a cultural event and open to everybody.”

For instance, she has begun translating her social media posts, long done exclusively in Spanish, to English after noticing that the majority of girls following her weren’t as adept at speaking Spanish.

This year’s expo also drew a multiracial group of teens and their families.

Maria Villavicencio went to the expo with two nieces. The teens each had different ideas and plans for their special day. Sophia Villavicencio, 13, had already chosen her venue and color scheme, but she wanted to add an elote cart and chocolate fountain.

For her, a quinceañera party is a way to embrace her part-Latino identity.

“I’m mixed-race, so it’s kind of difficult to stay in between both cultures, because I’m also American and Ecuadorian,” Sophia said. “I want to embrace both cultures.”

About the partnership

This story comes to you from Sahan Journal, a nonprofit newsroom dedicated to covering Minnesota’s immigrants and communities of color. Sign up for a free newsletter to receive Sahan’s stories in your inbox.