|
When
When your wedding takes place will depends on your astrologer. It is tradition for Chinese couples to consult a fortune-teller to find a favorable date - which is usually derived from their birth dates.
Attire
You can forget the white wedding gown – you will more likely be wearing a fire-engine red silk dress that’s intricately embroidered with a dragon and phoenix. Chinese brides buy as many dresses as their budgets allow and change from one to the other throughout the wedding to show their family is not strapped for cash.
Activities
At the break of dawn on your wedding day your bridesmaids get to give your husband-to-be a hard time by forcing him to negotiate his way into your house. Once they are satisfied with his offerings and he is deemed worthy of entering, a ritual tea is served to your family while you and your husband drink wine out of goblets that are tied together with red string or paper to signify your bond together.
Food
Chinese weddings are usually accompanied by a 10- to 12-course banquet - another way your family flaunt their wealth. Delicacies can include: shark’s fin soup, bird’s nest soup and a whole fish.
|
Music
Guests get in touch with their wild sides and enjoy a performance called the lion dance. This dance is performed by people who are dressed as powerful felines who sway to the beat of drums, gongs, and cymbals to scare away evil spirits.
To Finish
After the wedding feast, guests follow the couple into their bedroom while making as much noise as possible and taunting them. Then the newlyweds are encouraged into faux acts of intimacy as part of the game.
Guests typically try to stay in the room for three days -- or as long as they can before the privacy-starved couple kicks them out.
|