【i】Storyville: The Biggest Chinese Restaurant in the World-A Good Match

Lots of people asked me about Chinese wedding before, but I simply can't answer this question in a very simple way...
There are some difficulties for me to answer this question.
The first one and the most important one is people from different places do wedding in different ways!
You can blow up your budget for a very extravagant ceremony or you can invite some families, relatives and close friends for a feast only.
It really depends on what you want to do in this important day of your life.

Luckily BBC iPlayer just had a clip talking about Chinese wedding.
Storyville:The Biggest Chinese Restaurant in the World-A Good Match
This clip will stay online for another 2 days, and if you down load it, you can keep it for up to 30 days.
In this clip, you can find out Chinese way wedding including stealing bride, giving red envelopes, showing respect to ancestors, big wedding feast etc...
I personally found one thing very interesting.
When talking about marriage, the bride to be talked to the camera about his proposal.
He simply said, I am ready to marry you now...
Er... yes, I would say men are still superior to women in certain ways in China...
So talking about marriage, man will be the one who take action.
It's getting better in big cities like Shanghai or Beijin, but people are still very traditional in big things like wedding.

The wedding feast is very interesting.
People go for food, entertainments, and also face.
As some of you know face is very important for Chinese people.
See how much people put in red envelope for the couple, 700 GBP!
You must be rich and care about face a lot so you would give so much in red envelope lo!

I have a good news to share with you all.
My sister is getting marriage next year!
She will let me know what date the ceremony will be after Chinese New Year as she and my parents will need to check the lunar calendar first.
It does shows on lunar calendar what dates are good for wedding and what dates are good for moving, funeral and so on.
Her wedding won't be like what you see in the clip.
She and her fiance will have 2 wedding feasts.
One for the engagement, one for the wedding ceremony.
The engagement feast will only have close relatives and families only.
Other people like friends, colleagues, and some relatives you even don't remember will show up on the main wedding feast.

As I mentioned already, people from different places have different wedding customs.
My friend's wedding had 2 feasts as well.
But one for bride's family, relatives and friends, and one for groom's.

Nowadays, couple don't really want to go for traditional way as it's more complicated.
But parents or even grand parents would still prefer the tradition.
In Taiwan, we even have groom get on horse and use sedan chair to carry his bride back home!

On just before I finish this article, do you know in China, we take wedding photos before the wedding?
Yes, we have the photos done in professional studio, and have a very pretty album ready to show every gusts in the wedding day!
You can choose 4 to 5 different wedding dress and style for your wedding album.
And, we don't purchase our own wedding dress neither!
You can have everything done by the wedding agent.
Pick up a dress you prefer, book it for the wedding, and also book the make up and hair as well.
On the wedding day, bride will need to start doing make up, hair and everything since 4 o'clock in the morning!
Crazy, isn't it?
For being the most beautiful bride in the world, it is worthy!

We will talk about this topic more in the future as it is a Big subject!
Also, I might have the opportunity to show you the Taiwanese way wedding sometime next year!

Enjoy the programme.

Cindy