Traditional Chinese Wedding: Betrothal Gifts 過大禮

About 1 month before the Tea Ceremony, on an auspicious day, Betrothal Gifts are traditionally delivered from the groom to the bride. Depending on how traditional your parents are, finding Betrothal Gifts is no shopping at Testco.

Betrothal gifts includes:

1. Wedding Pastries – 2 pairs of Dragon and Phoenix Wedding Cake, one for the bride, one for the groom. Add other even numbers of wedding pastries from a total of 4,6 to 8.
2. Coconuts – 2 pairs of Coconuts. (It has to do with a phonetic symbol for child bearing)
3. Tea leaves
4. 2 pairs of betel nuts 檳榔. ( Good luck finding that in United Kingdom, try asking Chinese or Southeast Asian stores)
5. 3 Animals – 2 pairs of Chicken or Geese (2 males, 2 females). Pork ( chopped open in halves but connected at the bone). A pair of fish (It must be a pair of whole, big fish. Don’t do canned Sardine and absolutely no fillets! Your Mother In Law won’t be amused)
6. 4 types of Dried Seafood - High Roller Option: Dried Abalone, Sea Cucumber, SharkFin, Fish Maw, Scallops. Ghetto Option: Dried Squid, shrimp, Shitake Mushrooms, oysters. Both options must include Fat Choy 髮菜. Yes, you gotta put the Fat Choy in the Gong Hei Fat Choi here. There is no human English translation for Fat Choy but “Nostoc flagelliforme”. No, this is not a new vampire name.
7. 4 types of nuts – Lotus Seeds, Lily Bulbs, Dates, Longans, Lychee, walnuts or peanuts. (These are pretty much all symbolic of child bearing.)
8. Gift Box – A layered gift box that is big enough to contain all of the above. Then throw in more lotus seeds, lotus roots, Kadsura Pepper Stem 青蔞 ( yup, google this), cypress (扁柏), Betel nuts, sesame seeds, red beans, green beans, a red string, betrothal jewelries, cigarette, bottles of brandy, pairs of tangerines, 2 pairs of dragon and phoenix candles, a pair of wedding couplet 喜联 and the Bride Price in red envelope.

Please view our special Betrothal Gift Set, It can SAVE your TIME and £££ MONEY ;-D

www.loveilwedding.co.uk

Traditional Chinese Wedding: Tea Ceremony

Part 1: The Groom’s Procession to Obtain the Bride

You’ll need:

• Creative bridesmaid and props for Door Tests
• Door Open Red Envelope with money
• Tea Ceremony Set Up

With a bouquet, the Groom will lead the procession to the bride’s house with his groomsmen. Upon arriving at the bride’s house, the Groom’s party will face a series of “tests” from the bridesmaids before he can enter the lady’s chamber. That will typically entails some physical tests, embarrassing games, blatant declaration of love, mostly to entertain the bridal party but traditionally to demonstrate the Groom’s dedication. Of course after all that, you still SHALL NOT PASS without giving the bridesmaids an ” Door Open Red Envelope” which should contains a lucky amount of money (think permutation of 3, 6, 8, 9). With sufficient cash to bribe the lady bouncers, the bridesmaid will open up the door to the brides chamber.

Once the bridal chamber is opened, you can’t make out yet. The maid of honor will lead the bride to her father and the father of the bride will hand over the bride to the groom. This is when the Bridal Tea Ceremony begins.

The Couple will bow to heaven and then to the ancestors. Maid of honor should prepare tea for the couple as they kneel and offer tea to the bride’s parents.

Bridesmaids are supposed to return 10-50% of the Door Price to the Groomsmen and serve the guys with tea and snacks.

Part 2: The Bride’s Journey to the Groom’s House

You’ll need:

• Red parasol/umbrella (It is to protect the bride from any evil influences)
• rice, red and green beans

The ‘good luck woman’ or the maid of honor will shield the bride with a red parasol while the bridal party toss rice, red and green beans, which symbolizes fertility, to the parasol and traditionally, at the sedan chair.

At the lucky hour, the bride will be carried on the back of a good luck woman to the sedan chair. Great care was taken not to let the bride’s feet touch the floor, which is considered an unauspicious thing to do.

Modern woman should never be carried on the back of another woman 2 times her age and sedan chair are for photo-whore tourists only. In that case, just get in the car already, by yourself, with your own feet.

The procession accompanying the bride must consist of only female and the bride’s brother must not follow her to the groom’s house.

Part 3: Arriving at the Groom’s House

You’ll need:

• Tea Ceremony Set Up
• Red Envelopes
• Blings– gold jewelries
• 9 courses lunch

The couple arrive at the Groom’s House. The Groom’s parents will welcome the couple. The Groom’s Tea Ceremony begins.

The couple bow to heaven, then to ancestors. They then kneel and offer tea to the Groom’s parents. The Groom’s parents are expected to bless the couple and give them red envelops.They will then deck the bride our with blings – gold jewelries. The bride must wear them all at once to show gratitude. The couple then offer tea to other elders in the house.

The couple + wedding party is expected to have lunch with the Groom’s family. I don’t see this happening much because typically you should be out the door checking up on the venue or taking first look photos. Anyway, traditionally this lunch will consist of 9 dishes, which phonetically symbolizes Eternity.

www.loveilwedding.co.uk/

Essential items for Tea Ceremony: (Click the product to view deatils)

【Be a Beautiful Bride】Most of the Brides forgot...to do ;-D

1. Book the Facial Treatment EARLIER

   

Many brides because of time or budget reasons, they will choose to go to the beauty salon until a week before the wedding. However most of the cases, bride got stress before the wedding day and the skin problem become worst, then it will become very difficult to solve all the skin problem in a week. We will suggest bride should start the facial treatment 3months before your wedding. In the beginning stage, treatment can be biweekly and a month before the wedding should go to beauty salon once a week. Skin condition cannot change in a week, at least two to three months to improve the skin condition.

   

2. Body Care

 

Body care also as important as facial treatment. Brides need to have a smooth shiny skin to match with the wedding dress. Two months before the wedding should start exfoliating body to twice a week is appropriate. Every day after bathing should also put on body lotion or oil to keep the skin moisture.

3. Do not ignore foot skin

 
When groom and bride exchange rings, the bride's hand will become the focus of the audience attention, so hand care is a compulsory homework for the bride. However, foot skin care cannot be ignored, good nail repairing and cleaning dead skin can give the bride more confident, but also can help the bride to feel less tired in the long standing wedding day with the wedding shoes.

4. Wedding fragrance

 
 

Brides spend lot of time to discuss the makeup and hair with stylist, but do not forget to take the time to choose a suitable wedding fragrance. You can pick a wedding theme, such as cheerful, energy, sexy, or you can pick something similar as the flower bouquets you will hold on the wedding day.

5. Waxing

 

No brides want to destroy their image or feel embarrass on the wedding day because of the body hair. To maintains a smooth and clean skin, you can choose waxing treatment arms, legs, underarms body hair. After waxing, brides should avoid hot baths, sauna and sweating due to physical causes skin to prevent infection. Hair removal can be carried out in the week before the wedding to allow the skin to rest.

Beautiful Bride MUST NEED:

Konjac Fiber Face Washing Puff

Natural Beauty Massage Stone (Lift Up Face)

DIY Facial Mask Kit

Double eye lid tape

 

Traditional Chinese Wedding (Firecrackers, Wedding foods and Joining of Hair)

5. Noisy Procession to Fetch the Bride


Chinese people like the festival firecrackers to increase the festive atmosphere. At major festivals such as the Spring Festival, Lantern Festival, will set off firecrackers and fireworks, people used to express joy, but also because of Chinese people believe that firecrackers can use to frighten and ward off evil spirits. After the evil had been purged people were able to express their happiness.

Firecrackers are often found in Chinese weddings. The more powerful and loud the explosion, the more good luck is brought to the bridal couple.

Gongs, drums and plenty of noise marks the start of the wedding procession from the groom’s home to the bride’s home, frightening away any evil spirits that may interfere with the couple.
After collecting the bride, the procession snakes its way back to the groom’s house, symbolizing the transition from her own family to her husband’s.

However, due to the firecrackers will generate a lot of negative consequences (such as environmental pollution and wounded people, etc.), some local Chinese people have been banned firecrackers, so in the modern wedding, some people invented a new way to celebrate, which is step on the balloon to instead of firecrackers, this also helps to add a lot to the festive atmosphere to the wedding.

6. Traditional Wedding Foods

Red beans
  Red dates

Dried longans
, Peanuts
   lotus seeds.


Specially selected foods as tokens of traditional Chinese marriage include red beans, red dates, dried longans, peanuts, and lotus seeds.

Red beans are used to make bean paste as a sweet desert, representing  wishes for a happy life for the couple.

Red dates, dried longans, peanuts, and lotus seeds all  symbolize long life, fertility, harmonious marriage, and auspicious prosperity.

The words “seed” and “son,” and “date” and “early” are homophones-they are pronounced the same way but differ in meaning and spelling.

Following the ancient traditions, red dates, dried longans, peanuts, lotus seeds together with fruits like oranges and pomegranates are placed or scattered on the bridal bed, the more, the merrier, with wishes for the conception of a healthy baby.
 
7. Joining of Hair

In traditional Chinese culture, hair is often taken as pledge of love or token of marriage, as one’s hair represents oneself.

The bride and groom each cut off a piece of their own hair, which is then tied together and put into a bag for the bride to keep.

This token of marriage signifies the two people tying their knot, becoming inseparable, and spending the rest of their lives together.