What Happens At A Chinese Wedding? | Chinese Wedding Traditions
“The colour red represents success, love, loyalty, fertility, honour…”
We love researching into different wedding cultures around the globe, and this time we turn to China to study their beautiful traditions with matrimony. In comparison to the more Western tradition, white is often avoided as this colour is associated with funerals (though some brides can forego this association and go with western tradition) and instead, red plays a vital role. This colour represents success, love, loyalty, fertility, honour, and often goes hand in hand with gold, which is a symbol of wealth.
If you’ve been invited to a traditional Chinese wedding, it’s unlikely that you’ll see the couple take their vows. This is usually done at a local government office prior to the event, where the paperwork is signed. The event you’ll be attending is most likely to be a celebration of the union between the couple, but there are still some lovely traditions to celebrate on the day.
Before the wedding, the groom will present betrothal gifts to the bride’s parents, (known as the Guo Da Li) as a sign of good fortune and prosperity. These gifts are a formal proposal to the bride’s parents and can range from sesame seeds to gold jewellery. If the bride’s parents accept, they will return half of these gifts in order to symbolise a good relationship between them and the groom’s side of the family.
Once prepared, the invitations are sent out in long red envelopes, much like hongbao where money is given to people as gifts at events such as weddings or Chinese New Year. The invitations can have a personal flair to them, but usually, these are red with gold lettering, and they’ll bear the Double Happiness symbol (囍, shuangxi).
Before the wedding, about two or three days prior, the tradition known as An Chuang takes place, in which the couple’s bed is decorated for the night of their wedding. Female relatives will usually be the ones to carry this out, though specifically those who have parents, a husband, children and/or grandchildren. These factors can denote the woman as a woman of good fortune, as per tradition. They will change the bed sheets to red colour bedding and leave pillows containing a mixture of dried fruits and nuts, as this combination symbolises a long-lasting marriage for the couple. After she is finished, no one can sit or sleep on in the bed until the couple returns together after their wedding day.
The night before the wedding, however, there is another ritual taking place for the couple. In their own respective homes, they will shower/bathe with pomegranate or pomelo leaves which will cleanse themselves of bad spirits. The two then change into red clothing and slippers; the bride sits in front of a mirror or window and the groom will sit facing the inside of the house. A pair of red taper candles and scissors will be prepared by the parents, along with a stick of incense, a wooden ruler, a hair comb and some red yarn with cypress leaves. For the bride and groom respectively, a woman of good fortune (perhaps the same woman or someone else) will light the stick of incense and candles, and begin a hair combing ceremony. When she combs their hair, she will recite these blessings:
May the first comb bring you a long-lasting union
May the second comb bring you a harmonious union
May the third comb bring you an abundance of descendants
May the fourth comb bring you prosperity and longevity
Once their hair is combed four times, the woman in question will clip the red yarn and cypress leaves onto their hair, and the ceremony is officially completed, leaving the bride and groom prepared for their wedding day.
On the wedding day, the groom will head over to collect the bride in a boisterous procession, with firecrackers, drums and gongs signalling the start of his journey. Traditionally, a child will walk at the front of the procession to symbolise their wish for future children, and those who join the walk will carry lanterns and banners. Alternatively, those who join can play musical instruments or carry along the walk in a dancing lion at the rear. When the groom arrives, the bride’s friends (bridesmaids) may play Chuangmen, a game in which they will block the doorway of the bride’s house and only permit the groom to enter when they deem him fit enough. In most cases, the groom must present enough hongbao (red envelopes with money inside) to bribe the group, but sometimes the bridal party may get creative and set the groom tasks such as push-ups etc.
The wedding banquet comes afterwards, and has a high emphasis on food. Traditionally hosted by the parents of the bride and groom, this can be a beautifully extravagant event, with five to ten courses for the guests to take part in. As the guests enter the banquet, they will greet an attendant who will invite them to write their names in a book and take the hongbao from the guests, a gift intended for the newlyweds. The attendant will count the money and write it alongside the guest’s name(s) for the couple, as tradition also dictates that when they are invited to the guest’s wedding, they must provide a larger amount of money than they received. The banquet itself will include symbolic food in order to give the couple good fortune in their lives. For example, a fish course will symbolise abundance, a poultry dish for peace and unity, a suckling pig to show the bride’s purity, and sweet lotus seed desserts for fertility. The bride may change outfits between courses up to three times, including wearing the traditional red Qipao dress. This does mean that the bride can choose other dresses she wishes to wear, such as dresses influenced by western wedding culture as this is growing in popularity.
Finally, the bride will visit her family after being with the groom for three days. At this point, she is no longer considered to be part of the family but is still welcomed as a guest. The groom will be expected to bring a roasted pig, and the family will enjoy this meal together.
If you feel we’ve missed anything important out, please let us know — there’s a lot of information to process and we’d hate to have gotten anything wrong! Also, if you have any suggestions for the wedding traditions we should research next, don’t hesitate to let us know via our social media!
See you next week.
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If you’re hosting your wedding within the COVID-19 pandemic, please remember to adhere to the rules set out by the government to keep safe: gov.uk/weddings.
