Tea Ceremony

Growing up, I had been to very few weddings and every wedding I had attended had been for a Chinese couple.  Specifically, I remember my older cousin Minh's wedding:  the frenzy of the morning preparing for the day's activities, the long waiting period as he and his bride went to the courthouse to sign papers, their return and the start of the tea ceremony where they honored their elders, hours upon hours (or so it seemed then) of picture taking, and the best part of all -- the giant multi-course banquet that stretched into the wee hours of the night.

Having similar memories for my own wedding meant a lot to me, and so even though having a tea ceremony before a wedding might be seen as "old fashioned" nowadays in China, I felt that it would be a wonderful tradition to hold onto for me and Mike as well as our family. 

Traditionally, the tea ceremony is done the morning of the wedding, but to fit everyone's schedule, we held it about a week before the actual wedding at our town home.  It was a crazy and intense time since we had literally just moved into our new place in Eden Prairie the previous day.  We hid away the boxes as best we could and quickly set up our kitchen and dining/living room area to host 20+ family members.

My parents and siblings had gone to China in July and were able to get me a qipao, the traditional dress worn at Chinese weddings.  The dress had to be custom-made as most women in China are shorter and smaller than I.  Kim picked out the fabric's pattern. 

Dinner was served first.  Lasagna might not be very Chinese, but it is delicious and feeds a lot of people!

After everyone was fed, we set up for the tea ceremony.  My Aunt Fong was in charge of directing the ceremony while my other aunts were busy in the kitchen making tea and having enough dishes for everyone.

Lots of family pictures are also taken at the tea ceremony.

The couple getting married first serve tea to their parents to honor them.

Mike became very good at asking people to take tea in Cantonese.

After the parents are served, the couple serves tea to the other elders in the family as a way of introducing themselves to the family.

It was a wonderful way to spend an evening with family before the bustle of the wedding.