How I incorporated Chinese culture into my wedding

Editor’s Note: You may have attended a lot of weddings using both western style and a Chinese theme. However, how do you mix the two styles up? jiewei798, one of our bloggers, shares her wedding ceremony stories and pictures to give us a peek at her own unique wedding ceremony. Feel free to join in the discussion.

Although I am totally a romantic at heart, I have never been the type of girl to fantasize about my "dream wedding", so when my boyfriend of five years proposed to me, I was ecstatic, but had no idea how to plan a wedding. I watched American wedding movies to learn how to be a proper bride, but none of it appealed to me and I couldn't relate to the girls in the movie who had been planning it since they were five years old. I let my mother take control of a large portion of the wedding because I also felt like it was her day as well - I suppose many people would find this odd. The only things I cared about were the food and my dress. Since I was conveniently living in China during the whole engagement period, it was really easy to go shopping and buy decorations for the wedding. The following are some of the ways I incorporated Chinese culture into my wedding.

One of my artistic friends and I spent two whole days refurbishing an old window pane to make the seating chart with traditional Chinese depictions of the dragon and the phoenix symbolizing husband and wife, as well as fish symbolizing wealth and prosperity. In the top left panel is a common wedding wish: 百年好合 (bǎinián hǎo hé) meaning 100 years of harmony.

My mother labored for hours over the wedding invitations, which were dual language, English and Chinese. The English was printed, by my mother hand calligraphied the Chinese in gold paint and I affixed to the red invitations a gold wax seal engraved with my husband and I's Chinese names (偉偉 & 愛德華). We chose the auspicious date of August 18 (8/18). My husband's brother baked 50 cupcakes (yes 50, we had a very small wedding and I'm not big on sweets) and learned enough Chinese to draw the double happiness symbol on top.