Chinese Wedding

Chinese have been around for a long long time.They are having their own food , dialect and naturally, their own wedding customs.

 

Combing Hair:

The night before the wedding, both the bride and the groom needs to find a 'good fortune' woman and man to comb their hair in his/her home respectively. Both the bride and the groom needs to take shower before the event, change to some fresh new underwear and incense needs to be burnt. The bride also needs to sit next to a window where the moon can be seen. Their hair needs to be combed four times and each has a special meaning:

 

The first combing symbolizes: from beginning till the end
The second combing symbolizes: harmony from now till old age
The third combing symbolizes: sons and grandsons all over the place
The fourth combing summaries good wealth and a long-lasting marriage.

 

The whole action also symbolizes the adulthood of the couple. If either has been married before, then the combing event can be skipped for that person.

 

Hair-Dressing For the Bride

In the morning of the wedding day, "hair dressing" ritual is performed for the bride. A "good luck woman", woman with living parents, spouse and children, will come to help dressing up the bride's hair. The woman should also speak auspicious words while tying up her hair in a bun, a style of married woman. 

 

Capping Ritual for the Groom

"Capping" ritual for the groom is performed at the groom's home, where father of the groom place a hat decorated with cypress leaves on the groom's head.

 

The groom will bring the bridal sedan chair, a equivalent of a limousine nowadays, and a group of relatives and friends to go to fetch the bride. 

 

Chinese Wedding Door Game

Door game originated from ancient time which implies that the bride is a lovely girl and her family and friends do not want to marry her away.  The groom will be blocked at the bride's door, and her friends will try to stop him from entering by asking questions about the bride, a way to test if he really cares about her.  They may also do other tricks to delay the bride's leaving.  The groom will try to buy his way in by presenting "Li Shi", token money wrapped in red envelops. The entire "bargain" process is joyous and good-natured.

 

1.  Well, apart from 2 that I hear a lot about (the egg up/down the pants leg, and the blindfolded groom having to kiss women - or men) here's a "nice" (non humiliating) one: Get a sheet and cut a hole in it. The groom stands on one side of the sheet and several women on the other. The women all put a hand through the hole and the groom has to guess which one is his bride's.

 

2.  One that I heard about is a spinoff of the blindfolded kissing:  make a necklace of cherries and put it on the bride.  The blindfolded groom has to eat the cherries off.

 

3.  Another one is to seat the bride and groom with their backs to each other so they can't see each other.  Then they are posed with a set of yes-no questions to which they should either nod or shake their heads. The questions are things like "Are you going to be the boss of the household?", "You're going to make your spouse take out the trash, right?"  Seeing them both nod yes, or both shake their heads, is very funny!