Today was the day the main purpose of this trip was for – the Wedding of Yan and Kwan. It began much too early for my liking with members of the family who were staying at the hotel (the Harbour Plaza Metropolis) meeting for the mini-bus at 8am down in the lobby so that we could be at my aunt’s house by 9am. It was here that we all got prepared for the traditional tea drinking ceremony that was to take place. Make up, last minute preparations and grabbing a little bit of breakfast so that we could all be ready for the groom and bride’s arrival shortly after 10am. Now with Chinese weddings, the groom and his groomsmen must first travel to the home of the bride where they must participate in a number of challenges (today they are more games than anything else) to show their love, dedication and worthiness for the bride. It is one after they pass these challenges that they must then read out a contract of obligations they promise to uphold during the marriage (i.e.: things like to always love, honour, make the bed, cook dinner, clean etc) to the satisfaction of the bridesmaids and parents. This also requires the groom to settle on a monetary sum, much like a dowry in Indian culture, as a parting gift to the bride’s parents before he is allowed to whisk the bride away.
With the bride in his ‘possession’ (for want of a better word), the couple and all the groomsmen/bridesmaids then make their way over to the groom’s parents house where the couple is presented to the parents and are offered red envelopes and well wishes from relatives in response to the offering of tea by the couple. The tea ceremony passed quickly with members of our extended family playing musical chairs from closest relatives to those further down the line making the trip 2 at a time to receive the tea and offer our well wishes. Photos taken and all done, we cleaned up and had to make our way down to the church for the more traditional western ceremony. The ceremony was held in the Methodist International Church and was presided over by an English pastor and translated into Cantonese for those who didn't speak any English. Prayers, the wedding vows and some singing later, we were all soon filing out of the church, taking some photos with an uncle’s Rolls Royce and then it was time to head back to my aunt’s house for some lunch.
Seeing as we had a couple of hours to kill before the reception, those of us staying at the hotel made our way back to the hotel and enjoyed the benefits of a nanna nap for about 2 hours. Passing all too quickly we changed outfits and it was a short walk from the hotel to the restaurant where the reception was to be held, so we shopped around (well actually, the women shopped while us men hung around the front of the shops – fun!) until it was time for the reception to begin. More photos were taken before dinner (we are after all, Asian) and catching up with long lost relatives and family friends – the usual family politics prevailed.
Throughout the 8-course dinner, we watched photos, videos and other funny/cute/embarrassing media of the happy couple and toasted to their marriage. By the time all the festivities, photo taking and other wedding related extravaganza, we made it out of the reception at about midnight and caught a taxi back to the hotel. Today has been an incredibly long day (and my mouth hurts from smiling so much taking photos) especially after the loooooong flight from Sydney the day before!
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