Quinceañeras on Long Island: Why some LIers want to give the next generation what they missed out on

Kelly Castellon, 14, couldn’t help but smile during a recent fitting for her quinceañera dress — a puffed-up, glittery blue ballgown that wouldn’t look amiss in Marie Antoinette’s 18th-century court.

The $2,300 dress is the centerpiece of what will be a $50,000 event this November for the Farmingville teen’s birthday, complete with a Mass; a makeup artist; snowflake-dotted, blue invitation cards; and a choreographer for her “court” of gal and guy friends so they can salsa, merengue and cumbia at a dinner bash at Verdi’s, a Westbury events venue.

“It’s just exciting to be able to feel like a princess for a day,” Kelly said before the fitting. Referring to her parents, she added, “I’m very grateful they’re spending all this money.”

When a girl turns 15, it’s a special moment in Latino culture. The quinceañera, a centuries-old tradition, marks a girl’s passage into womanhood. Also called a quince — 15 in Spanish — these celebrations can be relatively simple at-home affairs, but they can also rival a wedding in terms of planning, cost and guest list, with families springing for overseas photo sessions, horses and a red-carpet entrance.

As extravagant as these events can get, some Latino immigrants on Long Island — from parents to those whose businesses cater to quinces — said they are determined to give the next generation what they missed out on in their home countries, where life was more about survival than eating cake at parties.

Maria Soriano, 42, of Great Neck, said she did not have a quince growing up in El Salvador. So when it was her daughter Olivia’s turn, she paid for a photo shoot in Paris as a prelude to the teen’s birthday in January 2023. Soriano said she got to experience the trip through video phone calls with her daughter.

It was “her dream,” the elder Soriano said. But, she added, it was “our day.”

CUSTOMS AND TRENDS

The quince, steeped in symbolic customs, continues to be a significant day for many young Latinas.

“It’s something we dream of since we were little,” said Melanie Chavez, 31, who works at the family-owned Asarela Boutique in Freeport. “It’s just part of the Hispanic tradition. You grow up wanting to be a princess. You finally turn 15 and now it’s your turn to shine — and overshine your cousin and your best friend. It’s like a whole competition.”

But the tradition has evolved over the years, fueled in part by social media.

At the party, the girl’s father customarily takes off her sneakers or flats and gives her high heels. Today, these heels can be glittery and match the girl’s ballgown.

Fathers have also presented their daughters with a doll as their “last toy,” but nowadays, some girls consider them “creepy,” Chavez said. The substitute? A teddy bear with a tailor-made, simplified version of the girl’s ballgown.

Usually, the birthday girl dances the waltz with her father, her mother and sometimes her brothers, but now, there’s also the “hora loca,” or crazy hour, in which the young guests can enjoy various entertainment, according to Latino families and business owners.

One of the latest trends is hiring “robots” on stilts to dance among the guests. These human performers, often dressed up in glow-in-the-dark robot outfits, spray party strings and smoke into the crowd.

Yianni Bachas, owner of iParty Entertainment in Wantagh, said his company has provided DJs, photo booths, masters of ceremonies and other entertainers to quinces, which have grown from 10% of his business to 30% in the past five years. “Events have become very high end and have included many levels of entertainment,” he said.

The popularity of the tradition has prompted wedding halls, dress designers, photographers, entertainers and more to add the word “quinceañera” to their advertisements. In recent years, some ballgown designers have even launched couture lines, with dresses costing five figures.

When some fathers learn of the cost of supersizing quinces, Chavez said, they cry, “You spent what?” Some of the mothers arrange to pay money on the side to keep the real cost hidden from their spouses, she said.

But Castellon’s father, contractor Milton Castellon, said he does not mind the price tag: “We spend a lot of time and money to show her how much we love her.”

SAYING YES TO THE DRESS

Of all the things that go into making a quince special, nothing rivals the tradition of searching for the perfect dress to wear. Often, the extended family, from grandparents to godparents and brothers to boyfriends, accompanies the birthday girl as she shops.

“Everyone gives an opinion,” said Debbie Exarchou, buyer of bridal dresses and ballgowns for Estelle’s Dressy Dresses in Farmingdale. “It’s just like a whole family event . . . I think it’s beautiful.”

For the current fall season, the runway trend is the Enchanted Forest and the sage green color, but the teens often have their own themes in mind, with Paris, Chanel, Cinderella and butterflies being popular ones. Where it was once the norm to wear pink, teens now look for ballgowns with a “wow” factor, delving into the TikTok photos, Instagram accounts and picture books of designers specializing in quinceañera ballgowns, boutique owners said.

Many want a bigger skirt, Chavez said, and the puffier the better. Others thrill over a glow-in-the -ark ballgown or ones that light up, with a battery in a side pocket and a remote control with eight settings.

“I see them all cry when they try on their dresses,” Chavez said.

Estelle’s began stocking quince ballgowns about 20 years ago, and today, even girls who are not Latina have embraced the ballgown fashion and other quince customs for their own parties.

“It’s grown tremendously over the years,” owner Estelle Schlossberg said of her ballgown sales. “It’s just as big as bridal is.”

A SPECIAL CELEBRATION

Some Long Island Latinas said they have never forgotten how they missed out on their quinces.

Growing up in El Salvador, Erlinda Montano said she attended her cousin’s quince, fell in love with the girl’s pink-and-yellow ballgown, then cried when she didn’t get her own party. Her father died when she was in the first grade and her mother, a home aide for seniors, didn’t even have enough money to fully pay for Montano’s grade school, which she said was not free in those days.

Now, Montano works at Estelle’s helping girls pick their quince dresses.

“When you’re little, you got your dreams,” recalled the saleswoman, 55, of Farmingdale. “At the moment, you don’t understand how hard it was for my mom to get things for me.”

Last year, Montano said she asked her bosses for a favor — she wanted to wear one of the store’s ballgowns for her 15th year working at Estelle’s and have her photo taken at the store. She said she chose a pink, poufy ballgown with a heart-shaped, sequined bodice. Swishing her skirt about, Montano recalled, she felt 15: “That day, I wanted to cry. I said, ‘Oh my God, this is my dream.’”

Irma Cantarero, a party planner, can sympathize.

At age 8, Cantarero said she was selling tortillas with her mother under Honduras’ hot sun, crying and praying to God to deliver her. Later, she got a job cooking, cleaning and taking care of a teacher’s home and three kids, ages 8, 7 and 8 months; Cantarero was 11 years old.

She said she knew she would never get a quince due to lack of money, and that is why she sometimes suggests ways of reducing costs to clients of her company, Pasarela Party Rental in Riverhead. The business owner sets up quinces from start to finish, including altering ballgowns and teaching teenagers how to walk in the dresses.

“Sometimes I tell these girls, ‘You’re lucky you’re not working,’ ” said Cantarero, 40, of Hampton Bays.

Fiorella Chavez, a Costa Rican immigrant who started the Asarela Boutique, said she also did not have a quince because her mother was not a key figure in her childhood, a fact that makes her own daughter, Kaylee, 14, cry as she compares her luck in getting a supersized quince experience.

“She never had the life I had growing up,” the teenager said of her mother. “I try to be there for her as much as possible.”

PHOTO SHOOTS IN EL SALVADOR, PARIS

Despite the cost, parents said what mattered to them was making lasting memories for their daughters.

The Chavezes paid for Kaylee to visit Costa Rica and El Salvador, her father’s native country, as part of her quince gift. She said she had photo and video shoots in El Salvador, where she wore a light blue ballgown at the base of a volcano and a champagne-colored dress while standing between two motorcycle officers. For that shoot, she held her boots aloft — a nod to her plan to become a customs and border officer.

Kaylee’s father, Enrique Chavez, said his seven sisters never had quinces.

“This is a blessed country,” he said of the United States. “If you work hard, you can have whatever you want. I can tell my daughter, ‘You don’t need it,’ but if I have the money and my daughter wants it, why not?”

Soriano, who earns her living cleaning homes and buildings, said she has not shared much with her children about missing a quince, loathe to have them feel her hurt.

My parents want to give me everything I ever wanted. 

Olivia Soriano, Great Neck teen

“I was always thinking why I didn’t have it,” she said. “I don’t want my daughters living thinking that too. I want them thinking everything is possible in life.”

So when daughter Olivia started planning her quince at age 8, Soriano and husband Marvin, a car salesman, said they began saving to make her dreams come true. Even when their daughter broached going to Paris, her mother was all for it, telling her child, “It’s only once in your life you celebrate 15.” They sent her to Paris for a week in November 2022, and chipped in for Melanie Chavez and a makeup artist to accompany her and meet the photographer.

“It was wonderful,” Soriano said, recalling her daughter’s video chats during the trip. “I remember it like it was yesterday. I remember most her face — how happy she was. I said to myself, ‘Thank God for this moment.’ ”

In a pink ballgown with gold-toned embroidery and a crown, Olivia Soriano, now 16, posed in locations around the city, including by the Eiffel Tower and in an outdoor cafe eating a croissant. She’s made wall-sized posters of the photos, which she said she’ll hang up when she gets her own house.

Her crown, meanwhile, has a special place by her bedroom window.

“Every morning when I wake up, it’s the first thing I see,” the teen said. “It makes me happy because I know that my parents want to give me everything I ever wanted. It’s just a gentle reminder of how much they work.”