A Big Fat Family Wedding

Yes, big fat family wedding indeed, for my cousin W and his lovely fiancee L (now lovely wife)! :-) This was the first traditional Chinese wedding in my family (everybody else pretty much did the courthouse thing, mostly due to the fact that they were poor grad students in a foreign country) and the first in my generation, so it was kind of a big deal. I thought I would make the comparison of this wedding to the [multitude of] American weddings I have attended in the past. Consider this a cultural learning experience for y'all. ;-)

Sistah T on bridesmaid duty
The first thing I had to do (within 12 hours of landing in Taiwan) was to pick out my rental bridesmaid gown. It was then that I found out a Chinese bridesmaid (called a ban-nian in Chinese) really doesn't have to do a whole lot compared to American bridesmaids. My main responsibilities were to accompany the bride as she went through her multiple gown changes and make sure her dress train did not get caught on stuff... a ban-nian is mostly for show and ceremony, I guess!! My cousin joked that a ban-nian needed a ban-nian too... like an entourage for the entourage. :-D

Anyhow, back to the bridesmaid's dress. Traditionally, a ban-nian wears a white or off-white gown - Americans may find that weird, but I think the purpose is for the ban-nian to look simple (yet nice) since the bride has so many dress changes. The dress shop associate brought out 4 or 5 gowns for me to try on. Let me tell you, I was one FAT American judging by the way I couldn't fit into three of the gowns!! I am the last person to have "body-image" issues, ok - I do like to eat, but I'm not overweight by any means according to American standards. But hey, let's be realistic here: I am a well-fed, healthy little piggy compared to these petite little toothpicks. And I wasn't just the adjust-the-straps-a-little-and-you'll-be-fine kind of chubby. I was the you-can't-even-sew-me-into-this-gown kind of fat. It didn't help that we had just gone out for sizeable Japanese lunch prior to selecting a gown. Note to self... don't do that again. :-D But we didn't really have a choice, it's just how the timing worked out. :-)

I ended up going with a gown that was slightly corsetted up top and had a little lace detail at the waist. The only adjustment that was made was... loosening the spaghetti straps. I know. I am not well endowed by any means. Apparently this is just how they get us chubby Americans to fit into dresses. The dress was very long as well, but the store said it was their policy not to adjust the hem/length of the dress. (I'm assuming this is because it would make it difficult to rent the dress to future bridesmaids who are taller.) All things considered, I was just glad to find something that would fit! And the dress did fit better on the day of the wedding because I didn't eat anything before I put it on. ;-)

Ceremony
W and L had a more "simplified" ceremony compared to how the most traditional weddings are done - but that didn't mean it was easy to coordinate! I was very impressed by the way W and L handled the details. We didn't run any more than 5 minutes late during the entire day!! It helped that both families are pretty punctual to begin with.

Rules of the game:

1. Everything is in pairs/even numbers, except for the number 4 (the word for "4" sounds very similar to the word "death" in Mandarin). So the groom's side needed to send an even number of people (in our case, 6) in an even number of vehicles (in our case, 2) to the bride's home for the tea ceremony and to pick her up/symbolically take her from her parent's home.
2. The groom's side of the family pays for the wedding. (Contrary to American culture, where the bride's side usually pays for the wedding itself and the groom's family does the rehearsal dinner.) There is no rehearsal or rehearsal dinner in Chinese weddings - there's just a whole bunch of people who tell you what to do during the ceremony. :-)
   
3. The bride makes multiple dress changes. L's was considered to be relatively "simple". By "simple", we mean 3 dress changes: one dress for the tea ceremony, one white wedding gown, one dress for toasting, one dress for greeting people as they leave.
4. Rings/jewelry: the jewelry exchange is also done in pairs. The groom and bride each rings to be worn on the middle finger and on the ring finger. When exchanging rings, the ring on the middle finger can only be put on halfway down the finger. I guess it's considered bad luck to wear it all the way down because then it's like one person has control over the other?? That's the way it was explained to me, anyway...

So we arrived at L's parents' home promptly at 9 AM that morning, and we were welcomed in for fruit and desserts. Then L came out to serve the six of us tea. Upon finishing the tea, L came back with a tray on which we would set the empty tea cup and then roll up a hongbao (red envelopes with money, exchanged at Chinese celebrations) to place inside the cup. The jewelry exchange then takes place with the help of a mei-po, or matchmaker/servant (loosely translated into English).

After this was finished, we left L's parents' home (while she changed into dress #2) to go to the hotel where the luncheon reception would be held to drop off two members of our party and to pick up one more. (This is so that we would have 6 members of the groom's party coming back - 6 original people minus 2 plus 1 gives us 5; add the new bride to this to get a total of 6. Confused yet?) Then we headed back to L's parents' home to do the "bride leaving home" part of the ceremony. After picking up the bride, we added her additional party of 6 and headed back to the Hyatt.

The primary wedding car, which transported the bride and groom.

Photography
The bride and groom will take their weddings photos (called a hwin-sa) several days before the wedding. During this photo shoot, both the bride and groom have to make multiple outfit changes. In addition to this, a photographer is present on the day of the wedding to take pictures during the event itself.

I have found as a whole that the photographers in Taiwan prefer staged shots. Current American wedding photo trends seem to include far more candid shots and b&w prints. I was surprised at how frequently W and L were instructed to pose, even during the wedding event itself. Also, I find American photographers to have more of a work process, meaning that there are always a "set" of group shots that must be taken (bridal party, bride's family, groom's family, attendees, etc.) at a particular time, usually right before the ceremony or between the ceremony and reception. With Taiwan photographers, you literally have to tell them if and when you want to take a group shot - don't expect them to set aside a time for this or suggest it to you!

One of my favorite shots of W and L, from their hwin-sa.

The food
Where do I start with this... we had a multi-course meal. The food has to be at least DOUBLE the amount of food you get at an American wedding. And it was GOOOOD. W picked out much of the menu, so much of it was stuff the Tai family usually likes to chow down on.

There is no cake cutting like we do in the states, and the equivalent of a wedding cake (called a shi-bing) is something you take home. W and L's shi-bing was a chocolated-covered rum cake, and it was delicious (we weren't able to bring it back to the States with us due to luggage constraints, so we opened up ours and ate it at Grandma's). There are plenty of wedding favors to take home though - in addition to the shi-bing, there was homemade mochi (made by someone on L's mother's side of the family) and various candies.

The outside of the shi-bing wrapping.

Miscellaneous quotes/stories from the trip
During the ceremony: after the bride was veiled, L's father was asked if he had anything else to say to his daughter. L's father replied, "Here - take your cell phone back."

Uncle TT, when someone was describing a housing development in CA called The Vineyards: "So... if there are vineyards, then there must be wine!"

Grandma went on a hunt for leftover candy at the end of the reception. Not for herself (it was really for all of us), but it was funny to catch my usually reserved Grandma on camera during all of this! Hey, she paid for everything, so she's entitled to search!

Grandma hunts down candy.

Boarding the flight from LAX to IND: two girls cut in front of me and my mom. (The more descriptive way of saying this would be: two girls who looked like they were from Beverly Hills wearing way too much makeup and designer clothing for their age followed me and Mom when we got up to line up, and then ran their suitcases over our feet as they pushed past us.) We were standing in the business class line, when one of the girls looks up, reads the sign that says "Passengers for Elite Boarding Only" and says, "Oh, this is for E-light boarding. We're in the wrong line." Maybe elite really is pronounced e-light in LA. Or maybe our education system has seriously failed us. There sure wasn't anything e-light about these two girls.