Wedding Day

It was a great experience to attend a traditional Chinese wedding yesterday.  A few things were obviously different (other than the language barrier):

• No religious ceremony, although there were definitely some ceremonial elements:
• Several people said some words about the couple; I gathered they were family / friends.
• The parents and grandparents were seated in front of the standing couple, who then bowed to them, which I thought was pretty cool actually to show that level of respect for their elders.
• Candles were lighted at a table that had banners, figures, cigarettes, etc.  I gathered from coworkers when I shared the pictures that this was maybe an offering of some kind.
• The traditional music was awesome; the musicians were there the whole day and played at specific times and they dined with us as well.
• Fireworks were plentiful and loud.
• Red is a lucky color; on this day it is typically reserved for the bride and groom.
• Clothing was basically casual.
• The food was overwhelming.  They ended up just stacking it anywhere they could find a spot, see picture below.
• Our table had two families at it and we were given 8 packs of cigarettes total throughout the day.  It was a little odd seeing people just light right up during the ceremony.

I chose not to put a picture up of the happy couple without their permission, but I can assure you that they looked wonderful on their special day!  One really odd thing to note is that the children did not get nearly the same level of attention that they do if we randomly go out in public.  I found this odd since we were out a way from the city and chances are we were more of an anomaly there than our normal stomping grounds.  I was happy for the change though, truthfully, because we didn’t get the feeling that our children were a distraction and we were able to melt right into the crowd for most of the event.  It was nice to not be total freaks for once.

We also got to do some shopping during a lull in the activity where we picked up some embroidered artwork and took a coffee break at a nearby mall.