Chinese Wedding Traditions

In Chinese customs, red is the central color of wedding. It is used in different ways as it signifies love, joy and prosperity. The bride's wedding gown is often red, the wedding invitations, gift boxes and envelopes are red and the bride and the groom's homes are decorated in red on the wedding day.

Before the wedding, the Chinese bride goes into seclusion along with her friends for a symbolic mourning for leaving her parental home. Before the wedding, the married couples from the groom's family visits the bride's place with gifts in red baskets and boxes. One of those baskets contains 'uang Susu' or milk honey. Three days before the wedding, the women from the bride's family bring return gifts to the groom's family.

It is mandatory for the couples to get married in the half hour of their wedding day rather than at the top of the hour, which denotes that the couples would begin their lives together on an upswing as the hands of the clock are moving up and not down.

On the wedding day, the groom arrives at the bride's place on his way to the chapel. The groom has to give gifts in cash wrapped in red tissue to the bride's friends for letting her go. The bride and the groom then leave for the chapel together.

The wedding ceremony is attended only by the couples' immediate relatives. Just after the wedding ceremony, the bride serves tea to her in laws as a formal tradition. The couple will then go to a professional studio to get wedding pictures. Then the elaborate reception will follow.

In the reception, a welcome speech is followed by a cake cutting ceremony. A Chinese wedding cake is with many layers, each signifying a ladder to success for the newly wed. So couples cut the cake from bottom.

Travour.com describes and provides information on the wedding traditions of the Chinese and around the world.

Here are some Wedding Traditions performed around the world