Chinese wedding receptions

In Chinese society, the wedding reception is known as xǐ-jǐu (literally, joyful wine) and is far more important than the wedding itself, which tends to be a brief civil ceremony. Unlike Western tradition, the groom's family pays all the wedding and reception expenses. The timing and the characteristics of the reception vary widely from locale to locale. They are often elaborate and expensive, and may cost the groom's family several years' income. However, because cash (in red envelopes) and jewelry (particularly gold) are given as wedding presents, the cost of the reception is effectively split among the wedding guests. Wedding receptions also build solidarity in the local community. As each couple weds, their wedding reception is effectively financed by gifts from the other members of the community, with the expectation that the new couple and their family will give gifts at future wedding receptions within the village.

This includes the Chinese in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia.

Brides' dress

Red/pink/crimson/firebrick/magenta/maroon/tomato are safe; no black, white, or navy blue.

Gifts

Unless the wedding couple has a wedding registry, it is best not to give gifts or gift certificates. For Chinese weddings, cash or a check is always the best gift. In addition to that, some elder relatives might also give gold jewelry. The cash or check should be in a red envelope or red pocket with the givers' names on it, and it is always given when signing in at the restaurant. Avoid any combination with the number 4; it is an unlucky number. Also, never use a white envelope to wrap cash or a check for a wedding.

Timing

There are two times listed on the invitation: (greeting) and (reception). Typically, they are at least two hours apart (some may be four hours). The first one is the time the groom and bride, along with their family, will be ready to receive guests and greet them; the second one is the time the reception/banquet will start. The gap between those hours is referred to as entertainment time. Very often, the restaurant will provide poker and májiàng for gambling; the time can also be used to socialize with other guests and take photos with the bride/groom and their families. Nowadays, in the U.S., you are less likely to see májiàng being played before the banquet; it is often replaced by a cocktail party. However, if the wedding reception takes place in southern China, Hong Kong, Macau, and even Canada (where there is a large Cantonese population), májiàng might still be played before the dinner.

Sign-in

Two people will be at the sign-in tables (one from the bride’s family and one from the groom’s) to register guests and receive gifts/red envelopes. Often, they will have two separate guest lists, one from the groom’s side and one from the bride’s. Then the best man and the maid of honor will direct ushers to escort guests to their seat.

Banquet procedure

Typically, the banquet will include a speech from the parents, the best man, the maid of honor, and the guest speaker. There will be cake cutting, toasts, a tea ceremony,some games designed by the DJ, and dancing. The two tables at the center of the room are for the groom’s and bride’s families.

Food

A Chinese wedding reception typically has nine or ten courses. Expensive dishes such as shark fin, abalone, lobster, jumbo shrimp, squab, sea bass, or sea cucumber are common on a wedding banquet menu. The average cost of higher-end menus ranges from USD$1,000 to $1,600 per table.

Wedding costs in Chongqing vary from around RMB 1000–2000 per table of ten people. Ten-person round tables are almost always used in southwest China. The menu will include a variety of foods normally off the establishment's set wedding menu, and the price will include the banquet room, the food, a cake, a bottle of wine, A/V equipment, and staff.

Some Westerners may not feel comfortable seeing dishes with a fish head, chicken head, or pig head; however, a whole fish, chicken, or pig means luck and completeness in Chinese wedding culture.

Traditionally, after the fifth dish of the dinner, the groom and bride and their families will approach each table to toast the guests. If the groom or the bride cannot drink, it is the best man, bridesmaid, or usher group’s responsibility to drink for them. Very often, the bride will change into a traditional Chinese red wedding dress ( or qí páo) at that time.

Guests are welcome to take leftovers home. Taking home the remaining food indicates appreciation of the groom and bride’s choice of food.

About twenty minutes after the tenth (last) dish is served, the groom and bride, along with their families, will line up at the entrance/exit to bid the guests farewell and thank them for coming. It is not polite to leave before the last dish is served.


7. Bride
A bride is a woman about to be married or newly-wed

The word may come from the Teutonic word for "cook". In Western culture, a bride may be attended by one or more bridesmaids or maids of honor.

In the case of an opposite-sex wedding, the bride's partner, who becomes her husband after the wedding, is referred to as the bridegroom (or groom). In the case of a female same-sex wedding, both partners may be referred to as brides.

Attire

In Europe and North America, the typical attire for a bride is a formal dress and a veil. Usually, in the "white wedding" model, the bride's dress is bought specifically for the wedding, and is not in a style that could be worn for any subsequent events. Previously, until at least the middle of the 19th century, the bride generally wore her best dress, whatever color it was, or if the bride was well-off, she ordered a new dress in her favorite color and expected to wear it again.

For first marriages in Western countries, a white wedding dress is usually worn, a tradition started by Queen Victoria's wedding. Through the earlier parts of the 20th century, Western etiquette prescribed that a white dress should not be worn for subsequent marriages, since the wearing of white was mistakenly regarded by some as an ancient symbol of virginity, despite the fact that wearing white is a fairly recent development in wedding traditions.[3][4] Today, Western brides frequently wear white, cream, or ivory dresses for any number of marriages; the color of the dress is not a comment on the bride's sexual history. White wedding dresses are uncommon in Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, and Japanese traditions, because white is the color of mourning and death in those cultures.

In addition to the gown, the bride often wears a veil and carries a bouquet of flowers, a small heirloom such as a lucky coin, a prayer book, or other token. In Western countries, the bride may wear “something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue.”

History

The term bride appears in combination with many words, some of them obsolete. Thus "bridegroom" is the newly married man, and "bride-bell," "bride-banquet" are old equivalents of wedding-bells, wedding-breakfast. "Bridal" (from Bride-ale), originally the wedding-feast itself, has grown into a general descriptive adjective, the bridal ceremony. The bride-cake had its origin in the Roman confarreatio, a form of marriage, the essential features of which were the eating by the couple of a cake made of salt, water and spelt flour, and the holding by the bride of three wheat-ears, a symbol of plenty.
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert possibly recreating a wedding pose from their 1840 wedding for the newly developed art form of photography. (1854)

The cake-eating went out of fashion, but the wheat ears survived. In the Middle Ages they were either worn or carried by the bride. Eventually it became the custom for the young girls to assemble outside the church porch and throw grains of wheat over the bride, and afterwards a scramble for the grains took place. In time the wheat-grains came to be cooked into thin dry biscuits, which were broken over the bride's head, as is the custom in Scotland to-day, an oatmeal cake being used. In Elizabeth's reign these biscuits began to take the form of small rectangular cakes made of eggs, milk, sugar, currants and spices. Every wedding guest had one at least, and the whole collection were thrown at the bride the instant she crossed the threshold. Those which lighted on her head or shoulders were most prized by the scramblers. At last these cakes became amalgamated into a large one which took on its full glories of almond paste and ornaments during Charles II's time. But even to-day in rural parishes, e.g. north Notts, wheat is thrown over the bridal couple with the cry "Bread for life and pudding for ever," expressive of a wish that the newly wed may be always affluent. The throwing of rice, a very ancient custom but one later than the wheat, is symbolical of the wish that the bridal may be fruitful.

The bride-cup was the bowl or loving-cup in which the bridegroom pledged the bride, and she him. The custom of breaking this wine-cup, after the bridal couple had drained its contents, is common to the Jewish faith. It is treaded under foot. The phrase "bride-cup" was also sometimes used of the bowl of spiced wine prepared at night for the bridal couple. Bride-favours, anciently called bride-lace, were at first pieces of gold, silk or other lace, used to bind up the sprigs of rosemary formerly worn at weddings. These took later the form of bunches of ribbons, which were at last metamorphosed into rosettes.

The bride-wain, the wagon in which the bride was driven to her new home, gave its name to the weddings of any poor deserving couple, who drove a "wain" round the village, collecting small sums of money or articles of furniture towards their housekeeping. These were called bidding-weddings, or bid-ales, which were in the nature of "benefit" feasts. So general is still the custom of "bidding-weddings" in Wales, that printers usually keep the form of invitation in type. Sometimes as many as six hundred couples will walk in the bridal procession.

The bride's wreath is a Christian substitute for the gilt coronet all Jewish brides wore. The crowning of the bride is still observed by the Russians, and the Calvinists of Holland and Switzerland. The wearing of orange blossoms is said to have started with the Saracens, who regarded them as emblems of fecundity. It was introduced into Europe by the Crusaders. The bride's veil is the modern form of the flammeum or large yellow veil which completely enveloped the Greek and Roman brides during the ceremony. Such a covering is still in use among the Jews and the Persians.