Photography by Russ Dilday
Buckner International

This summer the Family Hope Center in the Rio Grande Valley saw its first-ever mass wedding, uniting seven confident, assured, hopeful couples who had previously avoided marrying because their lives were so chaotic.

“For them, the Hispanic culture is that they think, ‘We might not make it,’” said Ricardo Brambila, director of the Family Hope Center. “They don’t want to commit because they don’t know if they’re going to make it, because first they need to meet their needs. But once their basic needs are met and they’re stronger as a family, they begin thinking about morals. It’s like a threshold. Once your basic needs are met, you begin to think through the future.”