1/13/2007 ~ Chinese Wedding

On the Rio: Jerry Garcia ~ I'll Be With Thee

I attended my co-workers wedding reception in December.

There is a welcome reception line to greet the bride and groom.

Each guest writes a marriage wish on the sparkling blue tree. Later in the reception the couple picks a random wish, reads it out loud, and has to guess which guest wrote it. The guest then wins a gag gift. Well, I ended up winning -- it wasn't too hard for them to guess it was me, as it was the only wish written in English. I won a fuzzy hand that makes a noise (I'll post a picture later.) I had to get up on stage and talk, and my boss Eric translated. It was quite humerous, especially after lots of drinking.

The most common wedding gift is money presented in a red envelope. I had spent part of the afternoon finding the right envelope and making sure I knew what it said.

I verified on the internet that the symbol on the envolope was correct in that it represented "double happiness". I also wanted to say something in Chinese to the happy couple, so I found a toast on the internet as well to say something like, "May your happiness last 100 years", and my colleague showed me how to write it, and I was so happy when they could actually could read it!

An MC hosted the event. The fathers of the bride and groom gave a toast. The speech is followed by a cake cutting ceremony, and the opening of champagne to create a fountain. The glasses turn colors as the champagne flows into them. The long tubes coming out of the cake are sparklers which are lit by the couple.

Chinese brides often change outfits at least three times during the reception. This is outfit 2, when they came in holding a lit sword to light sparklers on each reception table.

Here is the dinner table.

They also follow the tradition of throwing the bouquet, but not a garter.

Here is the couple in entering in the bride's third dress.