Cowboy Caleb the liberal arts, grown-up stuff & random mischief

Chinese Weddings

My gf is mad at me, because despite all my intarweb skillz, I am unable to gleam any information about chinese weddings. Just yesterday, I made a horrible faux pas because the concept of ‘giving tables to the brides family’ was simply beyond my banana comprehension.

The websites I found on Google are either obscure, written by non-chinese or are only applicable in China/HK.

If you are already married, local and chinese, please help by giving me a walkthrough guide on all the customs and traditions plus the economics involved in your own words.

It all depends on how traditional the two families are. One very cheena version is that:

(1) the groom’s family pays for the entire wedding dinner;

(2) however, the groom’s family also decides how many guests the bride’s family can invite

(3) that is, you “give” a certain number of tables to the bride’s family, and they can invite only as many guests as that number of tables can take.

“Face” is an issue here, because if you give too few tables, then the bride’s family may feel that they are not being accorded enough respect.

Then there is also the related issue of angpow collection on the wedding dinner night … and who gets to keep what, after that. The traditional bride’s family may feel that they are entitled to pocket all the angpow money that was given by “their” guests. Other version is that the groom should take all (since he paid for all the tables).

another version is to kahwin lari… so much easier. save money some more. wakaakkakkakaa

Yeah, what Wang Zhen said.

Have you guys done the “dowry” bit, where the groom’s family usually has to give certain gifts to the bride’s family (jewellery, suckling pig, other expensive stuff)? That takes a certain amount of negotiation as well.

There’s lots of other stuff beyond agreeing on the dowry and number of tables. We’ll chat :)

It depends on the dialect group of the couple.

Caleb, U r Teochew, but I dunno ur gf belong which dialect. For Teochew, we have to go buy the traditional Teochew biscuits. No suckling pig as its Cantonese. 12 oranges, 4 types of Jewellery for Bride (earrings, necklace, bracelet, ring), Dowry ($$$$), 2 bottles of hard liquor for the bride’s family. But now pple replace it with Red wine.

There are alot more… I might flood the comments.. so U email me if U need more help. ^_^

BTW, there is a shop in River Valley, which sells traditional wedding stuff… dun really remember which dialect wedding style they are specialised in. Its call Weng Zhan Fa. Think its 270 River Valley Road.

All down to negotiation skills dude, but the tradition is the guy pay for everything, which is damn stupid if u ask me.

Personally I’ve not been having any success though, wishing u luck.

Basics:

(1) Have you “ti-chin”? i.e made a formal proposal to the parents? That’s where the dowry, discussions over tables and stuff come in.

(2) Depending on your ethnic group you may need to get certain specific items for the dowry. If you’re teochew you need to speak to your parents about the “Shi Dian Jin” - or 4 spots of gold.

(3) Do you have an older sibling that’s not married? If you do, you need to hang a pair of his pants above the entrance of your matrimonial home.

In short, you have a million and one customs to follow. My advice is to find an old surviving relative to guide you through - and just do what they want.

Financial consequences - suprisingly light compared to the dinner. There are some - prepare a whole bunch of ang-pow and stuff. Gifts of money are generally needed all round during the big day and before.

now still got ti qing one ah!! i thought only channel 8 tv show got liao leh.

die ah……i also dono hahahahaha.

Chinese wedding?

Bring in the karaoke machines and let the uncles there take over the rest.

I am more banana than you sorry. lucky you have so many fans to help you :) dont worry..

Now you make me feel like marrying a white guy instead. simple church wedding will do without all those traditional stuff….

Go to http://www.singaporebrides.com and look under their forums.. you will find all the answers you need there! Good luck!

ah, the troublesome-ness of traditional weddings..

i;m sorry i can’t really help you, but to cheer you up -

thank your lucky stars that both u and ur gf are the same race. can u imagine if both diff races?? even worse, must observe two diff traditions.. hee :p

Aiyah too bad, I married a thai and there is no chinese wedding…

I heard that the giving away of tables also include giving the mother of the bride the angs pows collected from those tables. not sure if it is practiced much today.

WEll, I married a Chinese man in HArbin, so I guess I can provide some back up info…
1) Hong bao - red enevelope filled with money that people give to the couple. We got $1,000 from his father alone; not a bad deal.

2) Bride places a flower in mother of the groom’s hair. If the bride places it on the right, their first child will be a male, if she places it on the left it will be female, if she places it in the middle then it could be either.

3) This one is weird, and I don’t even know what to call it but, his aunt took a red comb and combed my hair and placed it behind my ear, and then they took a boiled egg and waved it in front of my face and then hubby bit it. He said it was for good luck, but I think it summoned demons!

4) Bride washes her hands in a red bowl and picks up a coin in the bottom of the bowl…again, for good luck.

5) Bride and groom perform “travelling toasts” similar to that of American weddings, but here the bride is not supposed to drink but just continue to fill the groom’s cup as he toasts at all the tables. (Made me feel lowly).

6) Freaky sex - I dunno, but my mother-in-law prepared our wedding bed for us…like she made the sheets and comforter by hand!

7) Fireworks, lots of singing of songs that I didn’t particularly like, eating all damn day, and smiling at jokes that were just plain foolish.

A step by step guide:

http://www.singaporebrides.com/wedding.htm

Check out this website… got loads of help from them for my job

http://www.singaporebrides.com.sg/

Lastly, participate in every single part of the wedding preparation. Don’t let the bride decides everything. She may appear to enjoy deciding everything but the wedding encompass the TWO of you!!!

I think Wangsifu’s traditions are not that local, so don’t think need to do it this way… But from my experience in taking part in traditional weddings, Wang Zhen’s pretty accurate for most.

Thank god I am having none of those wedding dinner thing. Phew!

Before you start freaking out at all the customs you have to follow (bought some chickens to release under the wedding bed yet?), remember that the traditions differ between dialects.

So if your bride-to-be’s family is the more ‘traditional’ one, perhaps your lady should be responsible for rooting out these customs and briefing you about them? You can do the same by quizzing your family about what they expect.

By the way, your post makes me glad I married a Caucasian. The only traditions I had to observe were ‘don’t let the groom see your wedding dress before the wedding’ and ’something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue’.

I am soooo stressed.

Muahaha. Wedding jitters already? Eh, discuss about this kinda stuff, better bring parents along. Same seniority mah. Also, remember to book a nice private room in a nice restaurant to give yourselves some privacy. Oh yes, coach your dad/mum if they’re not sure what to say. Just remember that the guy’s family must take the lead in discussion and keep offering generous terms (which more often than not, will be scaled down by the bride’s family). Keep asking ‘we plan to get ABC… is this ok?’ and you’re off to a good start with the in-laws.

Urm, me not married but I have done this 3 times already (for frens, cousin).

Hope everything turns out fine. :=))

i think, u and ur gf better sort it out 1st, b4 u get ur parents involved. and also, u hav to “control” ur parents, else it will get real ugly… speaking from experience.

basically, s’poreans’ customs are stated correctly by wang zhen. i.e. u hav to go thru the ti-qin state, then the guo-da-li state (which u send all ur dowry to the bride’s home), then the actual wedding.

during the ti-qin state, everything muz be sorted out. i.e. how much dowry u giving, how many boxes of “biscuits” the bride’s family wants, do they want the si-dian-jin (four spot gold), how many tables (of the dinner) they want (this one can cham-siong), what else do they require etc etc.

then the guo-da-li, the bride’s family would return portion of the dowry money to u, to show that they are not “selling” their daughter.

then the wedding, eps. the dinner. USUALLY, the bride’s family got to keep ALL of the ang bao they get from the tables they have. the groom’s side hav to pay for all the expenses. but some brides’ families are “open” enough to wanna share the expenses.

oh, and the tea drinking session. gotta be careful with the order of relatives drinking the tea, and so on and so forth…. very ma-huan.

a lot of hassle, enough to cause stroke in the weaker ones. =) but like i said, sort out what u want and what u dun want with ur gf 1st. then get the parents involved. else, u can be very cham… =)

GOODLUCK!!! =)

try this: http://www.singaporebrides.com/cgi-bin/forumboard/discus.cgi

helps a great deal when i was prepping for mine a couple of months back.

There’s shop which sells the traditional stuff if you’re interested in Jurong area. The owner teaches you abt all the traditions.

Couple of teochew cake shops too. Got mine from one in sEmbawang. Very well-done.

Most of the shops detials can be found in the forum. Let me know if u cant find them.