A Chinese-American Wedding
In China, a couple will generally take care of the legal paperwork of a marriage days or even weeks before the actual ceremony. Then the ceremony is more of a banquet with lots of eating, drinking, and smoking. The bride changes dresses 2-3 times during the banquet, the couple makes sure to toast everyone individually, and the guests go home with lots of candy and leftover food. An MC narrates the whole event and sings songs and plays games with the audience.
Sarah and I were married on June 25th in the US and wanted to have a wedding that combined what we like about Chinese and American ceremonies while omitting the things that have always felt unnecessary. So we started out with the traditional “walking down the aisle and saying I do.” Afterwards, we served lunch, Sarah changed into a qipao (a Chinese red dress), and we toasted each table separately instead of making speeches in front of the whole crowd. There was no bouquet or garter toss, but we did cut and serve the cake and sent our guests home with a box of Chinese and American candy.
Unfortunately, Sarah’s immediate family was not able to come. It will be a while (perhaps when we finally get her green card) before her parents can easily visit us in the US. But she does have some distant relatives who live a few states away that were willing to make the trip to Utah. It was nice to have representation on her side of the family, so it wasn’t just a bunch of Nielsens and random strangers (to her).
Responses to “A Chinese-American Wedding”
Comments RSS Feed – All CommentsPatricia Castellarin — 4 July 2011 @ 9:47 pm
sooooo happy for you two…a true love story
Cheers!
Patricia Castellarin — 4 July 2011 @ 9:51 pm
Gumbai!(sorry can’t write the Chinese characters)
Lola — 5 July 2011 @ 8:03 am
So happy for both of you. It looks like a beautiful wedding on a beautiful day. Excited for what your future brings. Also, she made a stunning bride. Lucky you! ;)
Amber and Travis Lowry — 5 July 2011 @ 12:02 pm
We are so happy for you! Congrats!
Robert — 5 July 2011 @ 4:15 pm
Congrats! That’s really exciting.
Johnny Sun — 5 July 2011 @ 11:00 pm
Congrats! Nice pic and really a special Sino-America wedding!
Clark — 6 July 2011 @ 3:42 pm
Thanks for the kind words, everyone!
Ryan — 6 July 2011 @ 11:01 pm
Looks nice. Best of luck to the both of you.
Rachel — 7 July 2011 @ 4:09 pm
Congratulations on your wedding! It looks like you had a beautiful one with a beautiful bride. So happy for you!
Hopfrog — 8 July 2011 @ 4:46 pm
Congrats again! Nice pics and it was nice meeting the two of you.
Clark — 12 July 2011 @ 8:29 am
Ditto. And thanks for still checking out the blog even though I stopped writing about China months ago!
Wedding Blog — 21 November 2011 @ 3:25 am
congrats… it looks good…
Taco Ted — 22 November 2011 @ 5:24 am
Friendly note mano a mano to Clark. lose the beard, mate. you are a handsome man and that face floss looks terrible on you. Makes no sense. shave and show your wife what you really look like. She deserves that at least…..sure when you first grew the beard it was cool, but lose it now, mate. You will look and feel MUCH BETTER….with the beard you look like a loser geezer homeless jerk. Seriously. Shave!
Clark — 22 November 2011 @ 9:17 am
Ted, this was so important, you needed to announce it on three separate articles? My wife has seen me with and without a beard, and she is okay with it either way.
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