Chinese Wedding

I thought I knew what a Chinese wedding was like. I mean, I've been to two of them, so I figured I had it figured out. I was wrong.... so wrong...

Last weekend I was able to participate in the entire ceremony. I will give you some step by step events.

7:00am- Kelsey, Nicole, and I were picked up to partake in the ceremony (we figured out later we were kinda the groomsmen along with one other Chinese guy).

8:00am- The line of black cars with pink ribbons were lined up and ready to go to the bride's home! I sat in the front car with the groom since I and the other Chinese guy were going to host the ceremony (that happens a bit later).

8:40am- We arrived at the bride's home... there was a lead car that recorded our trip over and as we got out of the car, basically everything we did. Firecrackers were set off to alert the bride and her family that we had arrived. After the firecrackers, we ran up to her door. The groom started knocking, but they wouldn't let him in. They asked him questions (who are you? what do you want? what's your name? why are you here? etc...) He slide red envelopes through the door full of money to encourage them to open up. Finally, he got through the front door. Her whole family was there- parents, cousins, aunts, uncles, etc...

8:50am- He does the same thing to her bedroom door. Finally, her mother came over and opened the door, then we saw the bride sitting on her bed with her dress on and flowing around her on her bed. She looked beautiful!!! Her four bridesmaids were there. This is the point where we discovered that we were the "groomsmen" The groom picked her up and carried her down to the cars. We all jumped in on the caravan and off we went! To where you ask? We didn't exactly know at this point...

10:00am- We arrived at the grooms home (his whole family was here). He carried her upstairs and set her on his bed (their new bed). They ate some soup (which I'm sure has some meaning). Offered tea to his parents and went back down to the cars (this time she could walk on her own)

11:00am- Last stop... the hotel! No we weren't checking them in for the night... we were having the ceremony and meal. The bride and groom greeted the guests as they arrived.

12:30pm- Ceremony begins! I helped host it, but sadly I made a mistake on one of my lines... So that was a little sad. However, I didn't care so much. I was honored that I was asked to be a part of their wedding in such a special way. Very seldom will we be able to see the "behind the scenes" part of the wedding. Only family and close friends get to join in the morning events.

I have pictures that I will add in the future. However, the internet isn't working very well right now so uploading pictures will be a bit difficult. There are other small things that happened which I didn't include. I didn't want to make the post too long, but if you want to know more, just let me know!