Asian Wedding Traditions

Everything You Need to Know

As a Toronto wedding planner we deal with a lot of different cultures here at Fusion Events, which to me is a beautiful thing. This means people interacting with people they usually wouldn’t interact with. Interracial dating moves into interracial weddings and not everyone is familiar with the traditions that follow these cultures. Yes, some may be a bit more outrageous than others but they’re all very important steps that contribute to the union of two people. Are you getting married to someone from the Asian culture? Also, do you know what their traditions are? If not, you’re about to find out. For this blog, I’ll be showing you two major wedding traditions in the Asian culture that you might find useful to know!

Chinese Door Games

Have you ever had to prove your love? Show your worthy of your beautiful bride? Well, when it comes to the Chinese weddings this is definitely something you must do to even see your bride on the wedding day! The point of the door games is to prove the groom’s love for his bride and also for his Hing Dai’s (groomsmen) to prove that they aren’t ready to let go of their friend so easily without a “fight”.

The games that take place range from the guys singing the sappiest song for the bride to hear, to the groom eating/drinking something extremely sweet, extremely sour, extremely bitter and extremely spicy, which represents the stages of a marriage. There’s even a questionnaire where the groom must answer every question correctly regarding the precious bride and their relationship!

The bride is usually hiding in another room close enough to hear everything that’s going on but far enough not to be seen. Once the tasks have taken place the groom must give the Tze Mui’s Lai-See. The money value requested by the Tze Mui’s will begin and end with the number 9, the number 9 represents eternity in Chinese therefore, that’s considered a lucky number for marriage. Remember this is all for some light hearted fun, but a tradition nonetheless no matter how crazy the demands get to see your bride!

Asian Tea Ceremony

This is a significant way of the bride and groom showing respect to their families. Traditionally, the groom’s tea ceremony is done in the morning and the bride’s in the afternoon of the wedding day, but nowadays it’s become one large tea ceremony party with both families. Which in that case, the groom’s family typically goes first.

This ceremony involves both of the couple’s parents, grandparents, grand uncles and aunts, uncles and aunts and the elder siblings. It involves kneeling before them with the utmost class and grace and serving them tea, making sure they feel the respect they deserve and intertwining the groom and bride with their new in-laws.

An Asian tea ceremony doesn’t leave the bride and groom empty handed, they receive Lai-See’s (Chinese envelopes filled with money and which also means lucky) and sometimes gold jewellery. Who wouldn’t love that? But the tea ceremony isn’t done without help therefore, the family members who’ve helped (younger siblings and cousins) receive a little Lai-See themselves. Lastly, the couple gets blessed with a happy marriage or abundant wealth.

 

Here is an example video of an interracial couple performing both traditions, the Door Games and the Tea Ceremony, all in the name of love!

Sources:

http://www.teasenz.com/chinese-tea/chinese-wedding-tea-ceremony.html

http://www.carmenweddings.co.uk/double-happiness-chinese-weddings-blog/super-fun-chinese-wedding-door-games#sthash.Qnwkb00N.dpuf

http://weheartit.com/entry/group/1918929

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Deneita being a recent graduate from George Brown College Special Events Planning Program, has always known the event planning industry was in her cards since the age of 17. From volunteering at countless big events such as Toronto Fashion Week, helping the designers prep their garments and dressing the models. Also, Canadian Screen Awards where she helped photographers grab the best dressed guests for the Academy. To interning for TIFF Bell Lightbox with the Events Department and working with the University of Toronto for their Spring Alumni Events. Her knowledge only grew fonder and her love for the industry only got much larger. With her experience in fashion, music, coordination along with her keen eye for details and not to mention creativity and organization, these attributes will only help her in her new love for weddings!