Why Traditional Chinese Wedding

Tying the knot is one of the most important thing that happens between two loving 

couple, but then having to decide what kind of wedding is another stressful moment especially if you come from a traditional background as not only do you just have to plan your perfect wedding but also you got to consider the traditional customs of the wedding. 

However now in modern times we can combine the both together and give it that twist, sound perfect?

Well not so when everyone start telling you bits and pieces of what a Chinese wedding custom and tradition should be it almost becomes impossible to know what is right. 

Maybe your mum is not convincing either, she is probably calling up all her friends and relatives to check with them on what to do. Your also probably looking back on your relatives wedding videos and memorising what had happen which all may become a blur, amusing and confusing. 

So does it mean we are starting to lose our Chinese heritage and culture? Will our future generations be able to understand, appreciate and enjoy their heritage when it comes to their wedding? 

Of course there are so many different practice within the Chinese wedding custom and understanding each one may need a little time to take in. Depending on the geographical regions from the bride and groom families, status and wealth of their families you may find there maybe difference of the practice you heard or encountered. So before deciding on decorations and planning the wedding event it maybe easier just to sit with each other families and discuss the varies difference to avoid any conflict on the day of the wedding. 

Below is just a small overview of what to expect for a traditional Chinese wedding, not to forget each region may be conducted slightly differently. 

Pre wedding event 

- Engagement or Intention to marry 

- Elaborate gift presentation - Betrothal 

- Chinese wedding date selection 

- Chinese weddingInvitation

- New bed 

- Gift presentation just before marriage 

Wedding day 

- Fetch the bride (games with the groom) 

- Tea ceremony 

- Dinner Banquet 

Although this may seem to be a huge amount of preparations but each of these events has their meaning and wishing the future bride and groom full of happiness and well being is something each of these events is providing. 

I guess the only way to preserve the Chinese wedding custom is trying to maintain what we have and understand what each customs really means, hopefully by understanding and explaining what these custom really mean will enable our future generation to engage on these customs and pass these on to next their next generation. 

What Do Rings on Each Finger Mean?

LEFT HAND
1. Mercury (The Little Finger)：Never wanna Fall in Love Again
2. Apollo (The Ring Finger)：Married
3. Saturn (The Middle Finger)：Engaged
4. Jupiter (The Index Finger)：Single and waiting for Love


RIGHT HAND
5. Mercury (The Little Finger)：Never wanna get marry
6. Apollo (The Ring Finger)：In Relatinship
7. Saturn (The Middle Finger)：In Serious Relationship
8. Jupiter (The Index Finger)：Not Married

9. Thumb：Represent power, the meaning of self-confidence


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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

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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.

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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 (Chinese Costume & Wedding Flowers)

3 Traditional Wedding Costume

Historically, the bride and groom’s very unique wedding outfits play the most significant part in the wedding.
Despite a wide variety of style and element choices in Chinese regions, typically, wedding clothes for the bride and groom include red as the base color with a dragon and phoenix design.
The bride’s dress is a Chinese-style long gown called a Cheongsam/ qípáo, which features an embroidered phoenix and embodies the beauty of a Chinese traditional costume, while the groom’s clothing often has two pieces, a coat over a long robe embroidered with a dragon.

4 Wedding Flowers
Peonies Orchids
Lotus Narcissus
Contrary to the idea of ​​Westerners is that white flower is a symbol of death, generally only used in the funeral, and therefore white flowers can not be used as a decorative marriage. Traditional Chinese Wedding likes to use peonies, orchids, lotus and narcissus as decoration. Because peonies on behalf of wealth, and narcissus represent the new life of spring, orchids on behalf of, the beautiful and fragrant, lotus represents love, also lotus is a symbol of holiness in Chinese Buddhism.

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Traditional Chinese Wedding ‘Articles (Double Happiness and Dragon and Phoenix)

The Chinese nation has a long history of 5000years, rich cultural connotations and national traditions. In Chinese culture, the wedding articles has a very deep and important meaning in the wedding. They represent auspicious, joy and so on.

Let’s have a look The traditional Chinese wedding auspicious:

1. Double Happiness

The Chinese Weddings, everywhere can easily to see a bright red double happiness character. Double Happiness is created by attaching two single Chinese characters “happiness” together, it represents the wedding have doubled happy and festive, also mean to bring good luck and happiness to the couple.

In a traditional Chinese wedding, red is considered an auspicious color, representing love, happiness, and wealth.

The red double happiness symbol is included on invitations, and is used throughout the ceremonies, at receptions, banquets, and celebrations. It symbolizes the newlyweds’ union, and is considered good luck.

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2. Dragon and Phoenix

In traditional Chinese culture, the dragon and the phoenix, are considered auspicious symbols.

According to ancient records, the dragon was commonly referred to as “the Ruler of Beasts” and the phoenix as “the King of Birds.” As such, the mighty dragon became a symbol of the Chinese Emperor, while the virtuous phoenix was an embodiment of the Empress of China.

Passed down through the ages, the images and patterns bearing the dragon and phoenix have become highly-revered cultural treasures, representing auspiciousness, nobility, peace, and prosperity. They are still used in today’s traditional Chinese wedding ceremonies.

In Chinese history, any recorded appearance of dragon and phoenix was regarded as an extremely auspicious sign, foretelling a peaceful and prosperous period for the people and the country.

Emperor Ku from the period of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors (24th-23rd century BC) was said to enjoy music with such appealing tones that it attracted golden dragons and colorful phoenix to appear and dance to the delightful music.

The harmonious co-existence of these two mythical creatures signifies marital harmony, with good blessings bestowed upon the bridal couple.

Related Products: (Please click the picture to find out more)