Delilah Star Bustos Segura, accompanied by her mother and sister, stopped by several booths at the DoubleTree by Hilton in Bloomington on Sunday 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 teen girls and their family members attending this year’s Minnesota Quinceañera Expo, which showcased small businesses that cater to quinceañera parties.
Gloria Herrera founded the Minnesota expo five years ago after the coming-of-age tradition celebrated by generations of Latino families in the United States 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.”
Sunday’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 for quinceañera services.
Quinceañera celebrations typically depend on businesses that also cater to weddings, according to Luis Raúl Solorio Cisneros, owner of Sonido D-Kache Mn, a party-planning business based 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 given Minnesota’s harsh winters, 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 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.
“I don’t know if people just don’t want to get married anymore or what, but right now what’s popping the most are the quinceañeras,” Solorio Cisneros said.
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.
Solorio Cisneros said he hopes such innovations can help his business weather any downturn as some clients shy away from large public celebrations for fear of visits from administration immigration policy enforcers.
“People keep hiring me, although it’s slow, but little by little, I think people are losing that fear,” he said.
Sam Leon, chief operating officer of Acapulco Mexican Restaurants of Minnesota, has spent 25 years offering catering services for parties. Leon said he’s aware of community fears, but his business is still on pace to match last year’s number of parties.
But the amount of money party 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.
At Sunday’s expo, Bustos Segura took notice. She said she wants one for her party, or a cup ramen station at the end of the night to provide a quick snack for partygoers.
“I need that [snack cart], a photo booth with a mirror for sure, and a dance floor,” she said.
She capped off her expo experience by watching several quinceañera models take to the runway to showcase several different styles of dresses.
As American Latino cultures evolve, services expand
Herrera, a party planner for the past 10 years, said that in addition to evolving food and decor trends, 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.
That’s because Minnesota quinceañeras often celebrate second- and third-generation daughters who may not speak Spanish on a regular basis.
Businesses evolve to honor girls’ backgrounds
Sunday’s expo drew a multiracial group of teens and their families.
Maria Villavicencio went to Sunday’s expo with two nieces. The teens — cousins — each had different ideas and plans for their special day.
Sophia Villavicencio, 13 going on 14, had already chosen her venue and color scheme, but wanted to add an elote cart and chocolate fountain. She’s also looking forward to a choreographed dance scene kicking off her night’s festivities. The choreographed dance is traditionally a waltz, followed by a surprise dance whose genre and music are chosen by the birthday girl.
Sophia said she wants both “damas” and “chambelanes,” a court of her closest girl and boy friends, to dance with, although she’s not too keen on dancing with the boys.
“I want the guys to do a choreographed dance to ‘Bye Bye Bye’ from NSYNC and the girls to do ‘Hips Don’t Lie’ by Shakira,” she said.
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,” she said. “I want to embrace both cultures.”
Herrera said multicultural parties are becoming more common as quinceañeras showcase the celebrants’ mixed cultures.
Because of that growing diversity, Herrara opened the expo to business owners from outside the Latino community who also offer party services.
An example — the All Inclusive Photo Booth business run by Jessica and Gabby Alvarez, an interracial couple. The business rents out a photo booth for party attendees to take and print out pictures.
Jessica Alvarez, who is white, was introduced to quinceañeras by her Hispanic wife. The two of them wanted to start a business that was fun and easy.
“It’s a way for your guests to come away with something to remember, whether you’re with the quinceañera in the photo, or you’re just having fun with your friends,” Jessica Alvarez said.
Quinceañeras became a major market for their business due to high referral rates. “We go to one quinceañera and we get, like, four bookings after that one,” Gabby Alvarez said.
‘It’s your day; be happy’
Sunday’s expo wasn’t just about giving a platform to quinceañera party businesses. Herrera said the goal was to introduce those businesses to a wider audience and to help small business owners network and expand their services to other celebrations such as graduations, weddings and birthdays.
She has faith that fears of an immigration crackdown won’t keep families from celebrating a beloved and joyful tradition.
“With a positive mentality and lots of faith in God, just know that we’re welcomed, we’re hard-working people and everything else doesn’t matter,” Herrera said.
Bustos Segura echoed that optimism: “For the girls out there, just enjoy your day. Don’t stress much about it. It’s your day; be happy.”
