Chinese Wedding Reception Traditions

We went to a wedding reception tonight held in a Chinese restaurant nearby. In every culture, people usually revert to traditions during marriages. Although my wife’s cousin got married to his wife in Taiwan, the dinner reception we attended tonight was no exception. Wishing them 白頭偕老, or being together until their hair turns white.

The wedding couple has to pour tea for every adult at the reception starting with the parents first. Then periodically they have to go around to each of the tables drinking a toast to everyone at the table. This means that the bride and the groom usually get very little to eat, but since this was a reception rather than the actual wedding reception people went easy on them. They only had to make 3 or 4 rounds of drinking at every table.

A tradition probably common to weddings everywhere is the heavy drinking relatives. There is usually an uncle or two who get progressively more drunk as the evening wears on. They get louder and usually quite a bit friendlier after the dinner is winding down. It is at this point that I am usually asked to sing as a representative 外國人, but fortunately this was not a singing-friendly group so I also got off easy tonight.

As expected dinner was great! It was almost all seafood, lobster, crabs and different types of fish. The only exception was my favorite, roast pigeon 鴿子 with salt, pepper and lemon. Now, if you are a Westerner I know you are thinking ‘yech, but give it a try before you knock it….these aren’t your average park-bench pigeons.

I haven't really but scratched the surface of traditional Chinese weddings, but if you're interested this site has some interesting items for sale and describes some of the traditions.