Our Big Fat Chinese Wedding
I know what you’re thinking. Wait a minute Mo, aren’t you having your wedding in a vineyard with Italian food? This blog post title says “big fat Chinese wedding”, what’s so Chinese about a vineyard and Italian food? Is your entire profile a sham?? Is your name even Mo??!
I can explain. Yours truly not only is having one wedding extravaganza, but TWO. That’s right, we’re having two celebrations, in two different cities, with two different guest lists, two different invitations, two different florists, two different outfits…I could keep going but you’re probably getting a headache.
It’s insane. I now refer to our events as wedding #1, what my parents refer to as “the western wedding”, and wedding #2—The Chinese Banquet. [If you're unfamiliar or want to know more about Chinese banquets, Chinese Weddings by the Knot has a pretty good run-down of what a wedding banquet entails, plus a lot of other Chinese traditions! Also, The Wedding Banquet, directed by Ang Lee, kept me laughing and is very educational. I love that movie, two enthusiastic thumbs up.]
The good news (or is it good?) is that the banquet is being totally planned by my mother and my future mother-in-law. 300 of our parents’ friends and relatives (and when I say relatives, I mean second, third, and fourth cousins), will be dining on roast pork, shark fin soup, and walnut shrimp. You read right. THREE HUNDRED. This banquet is making both our parents very, very happy, so I’ve tried to get over all the hoopla and am instead focusing on my only task: finding something to wear.
All I have to do is show up in a cheongsam and have two other outfits to change into (it’s customary for the bride to change multiple times). My mother gave me the two dresses she wore to her wedding, and they are gorgeous. I would love to wear one of them, but they are too small (*cry). If I lose 10 pounds, I can fit into them. I doubt that will happen, but for a short moment, I was able to squeeze one of them on without ripping it (woohoo!):
[I would loooove to wear this one, but it wouldn't even fit over my thighs! These suckers are tight as $%^&. Because they don't fit, we will probably have one made to my measurements.]
Is anyone else having a second reception or a big fat Chinese wedding? :)
This is so cool — I can’t wait to hear more about both of the weddings!
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Lucky you! It helps that you’re getting lots of help with Wedding #2! Roasted pork – bring it on!
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Definitely helps that you don’t have to do anything for your Chinese celebration. Do your parents view one or the other as more important to them at all?
@juel: Good question. I would say the banquet, as opposed to our vineyard wedding, is more important for both of our parents. For many of the guests who will be at the Chinese banquet, the banquet IS the wedding.
First dances and cake cutting aren’t really a priority for them. The traditions they are interested in are the tea ceremony, in which the bride and groom serve tea to their elders, and a formal introduction of all our family members to wedding guests.
I hope they remember telling me that all I have to do is show and smile a lot, because I can barely handle planning one wedding!
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Mmm, can I pretend to be a 5th cousin?
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Those are both such pretty dresses! How cool to have two weddings. It’s probably good to occupy the moms with one so you can have the western one your way.
Is it traditional to wear red for the Chinese wedding? I can’t wait to see what you wear :-)
@anna and the ring: If there was ever a wedding that would be easy to crash, it’d probably be that one! If you bust out some Cantonese they won’t think twice about your presence.
@julia: That’s exactly what my sister said! I’m glad they have this to look forward to. They’re already looking at invitations and talking about who will give speeches. They haven’t talked about wedding #1 since they started planning the banquet.
@Emma: Yes, red is customary because it symbolizes good luck. Typically a cheongsam is red, sometimes with a phoenix or dragon. The two dresses my mother wore are nontraditional. I’m supposed to wear a red gown at some point, and I’ll keep you all posted on my shopping adventures!
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Wow, two celebrations! That’s fantastic!
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I’m having a “western” wedding in San Diego at the Darlington House at the end of the month and will have a chinese banquet-style wedding in Orange County the following week. Uyen is also doing my makeup and Paula my flowers!! Anyhoo, I was hoping that my mom would take care of all the details for the second reception, but I’ve somehow gotten dragged into it, so I’ve been planning two weddings, ugh! I plan on wearing a traditional Vietnamese dress at the second reception, but mom wants me to change into my wedding dress for the second half. Is it a faux pas to wear my wedding dress again?
