Day 33: Invited to Wedding

Today I was invited by a friend to attend a Chinese Wedding ceremony. Unfortunately we arrived after much of the ceremony had taken place but the venue, the Yellow River Romantic Gardens (黄河风情园), was beautiful.

When we arrived, we were met by the families of the bride and groom, and then the bridge and groom themselves! It is a tradition of Chinese weddings that it is the bride and groom that visit each of their guests, rather than the other way around.

There were twenty to thirty tables, each decorated with rich red (an auspicious colour for the Chinese, providing good luck). A course of cold dishes were then brought out. This was followed by a course of warm dishes. The bride and groom appeared again by us, and the bride was in a new dress, this one pink. The changing of The groom was apparently following another tradition, where they perform a toast of baijiu with every guest! Guests passed red envelopes containing money gifts to the bride and groom, red again providing luck.

Following the wedding banquet, I went for a walk with my friends around the Water Wheel Garden. We sat down and enjoyed a glass of tea each and talked while the sun went down, a pleasant end to a day with such pleasant company!