For those of you who have never been to a Chinese wedding banquet in this part of the world, here's a little introduction to the pageantry, using my cousin's lovely wedding on Sun as an example:
Before the Dinner: (click on the photos to enlarge)
We get all dressed up for the wedding, and as usual everyone is late for the tea ceremony, which is supposed to start at 6.30pm. Just as well, since when we got there, the solemnisation was still ongoing and we had to wait outside in the reception. The typical set up of the wedding reception table is the Wedding Photo Album (for people to gawk at), a big Ang Pao box (for people to deposit money), and a guest book (for people to write their well wishes). People like to have their weddings in hotels because they offer large ballrooms, and often, include a night's stay at a fancy hotel suite you don't often see the likes of.
The siblings and I started pulling funny faces because we were getting bored. Then voila, it was time for the tea ceremony. As you can see, the wedding couple's supposed to serve tea to basically whoever is a senior relative (uncle and above). In more traditional families, you would actually have to kneel. I kinda like the idea but my mom pooh-poohs it. She is a lady after your own heart.
After the tea ceremony, we got seated in the ballroom. In the first photo, you see the posh table arrangement for the VIP table, which is usually where the bride and groom and their families sit. The much-talked about wedding banquet menu which can stretch to 10 items or more. Before the wedding starts, we look at a slideshow of the wedding photos. During the wedding, we also watched a powerpoint slideshow of the bridal couple's baby pictures and teenage shots.
The bridal couple makes their grand entrance. This is called the first march-in (as the name suggests, there are two march-ins). If you let the hotel choose, it will always play horrible music like Kenny G or Canon in D Minor, so I suggest using your own music.
Us bumming around during the dinner. As you can see, everyone else is doing the same thing. In the fourth photo, I am holding a wedding favour. It's the first time I've ever received honey! (Usually it's teddy bears, key chains, cookies or fruit cake) I think it's nice! It reminds me that one of descriptors for love in Chinese is "sweet like honey".
The bride and groom make a second entrance in evening wear :) Then a big bunch of people gather on stage to do the traditional noisy chinese toast, "Yum Seng" (which really just means "bottoms up" or something). They try and drag it out as long as possible for prosperity. Then the bride and groom make a thank you speech. Then before long, dinner's over, and the wedding couple needs to stand outside to shake hands with all the departing guests.
And I do think their wedding portrait is lovely, don't you?
And I do think their wedding portrait is lovely, don't you?
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