Happy Wedding!

On my first day of work in China I was advised that one of the office staff was about to get married and that I would probably be invited to the wedding. So upon meeting Liu Li, one of the Chinese interpreters, I was only slightly surprised to be invited to her wedding on Sunday!

The invitation was a small red box adorned with an image of a boy Chinese doll and a girl Chinese doll kissing. Inside the box was a packet of cigarettes and a heap of lollies, along with a note of invitation containing all the details of the wedding. When I mentioned that I don’t smoke I was advised that whenever anyone is invited to a wedding their whole family is invited – therefore “the cigarettes are for your husband or lover and the candies are for your children”. I didn’t bother stating the obvious that I have neither a husband nor children…

The wedding was held in a large restaurant/reception centre about 20 minutes from the city centre. As our entire office was invited we all went along in a mini bus. On entering we were offered more cigarettes and lollies before being accosted for a group photo. We then signed the guest book and handed over our wedding gifts – a red envelope containing money. Sure beats 17 toasters or a Bunnings voucher!



I had been a little worried about what to wear as I thought people would probably be quite dressed up and I don’t have anything really terribly dressy with me. I settled for a denim skirt, black top and boots, way more casual than I’d ever wear to a wedding back home but the best I could do under the circumstances. It turns out I had nothing to worry about because most people were just wearing everyday clothes ie. jeans and sneakers. While the groom and best man were in nice suits and the bride in a traditional white dress, the lone bridesmaid was also in jeans!

The ceremony itself had a number of similarities and also a number of differences to a typical Western wedding. For starters the guests were seated in order of importance. With about 400 guests I was quite surprised to be on the third table from the front on the bride’s side. Work colleagues made up the first four tables; the first consisting of the bride’s Chinese work managers, the second table seated the Australian team leaders and long term staff, the third table was Australian short term advisers and the fourth table was the drivers. The family of the bride and groom were in the centre near the front and everyone else was behind us.

To start the festivities a little boy and girl walked down the ‘aisle’ (red carpet down the middle of the room between the tables) to the strains of ‘Silent Night’. They seem to have a weird obsession here with Western Christmas Carols. The street sweeper truck which goes by daily plays a medley of Christmas Carols including ‘Jingle Bells’, ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town’ and 'Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer'. Anyway these tiny and gorgeous young kids tossed rose petals before the speakers began to blare ‘Here Comes The Bride’. The bride was escorted half-way down the aisle by her father before being met by the groom who accompanied her the remainder of the way. Along the way they were showered with rose petals, bubbles & streamers from colossal party poppers.

At the front the happy couple stood before a backdrop with a big photo of themselves in wedding gear and the words ‘Happy Wedding!’. The ceremony itself consisted of a series of speeches which was a little hard to follow partly because it was all in Chinese and partly because of the absolute bunfight as people fought their way up to the stage to take photos. Despite being seated near the front I couldn’t see a thing due to the paparazzi-like throng of photographers. There were about seven speeches including the bride’s father, Chinese boss, Australian boss, the best man and I assume the groom’s boss and others. Fortunately they were all short and sweet, no longer than about 3 minutes each. All up the ceremony took about an hour I’d say – and it finished with the groom down on bended knee placing the ring on the bride’s finger and then a kiss. The bride and groom had to continue kissing for as long as the audience continued clapping, so the clapping went for quite a while.

To finish things off the bride tossed the bouquet to a mixed group of girls & guys - I was instructed to get up there to catch it but I tried my hardest not to. A young guy was really determined to get it and he went flying across the pack to do so.

Then there was the food. During the ceremony the tables had been filled with food and on completion of the official speeches etc everyone began to eat. The food itself was interesting. Duck. Rabbit. Chicken tongue. Please refer to photo below…

The dish at the rear-left is chicken tongues.
Can you guess what the main dish is?

While we were eating, the bride and groom circulated around the room having a congratulatory toast with every table. By this stage she had changed into a traditional red Chinese dress which was really pretty. By the time they had been to every table (about 40 all up) people had started to leave. It was quite funny actually, in fact one of the main differences from any other wedding I’ve been to – as soon as they’d had enough to eat the guests just up and left. In fact the whole event was over in about 2 hours and I headed home to enjoy the remainder of the afternoon!