Chinese Wedding Traditions
Almost every culture worldwide has some form of a wedding ceremony as part of it. Each culture has different variations of the ceremony itself as well as traditions associated with the wedding. One of the more interesting Chinese wedding traditions is known as the “Three Letters and Six Etiquette” tradition. This tradition can be broken down into its two main parts; the “three letters” and the “six etiquettes”.
The three letters are letters written to the family of the bride and from the family of the groom. All of the letters should be delivered in sequence to the bride’s family by an elderly female relative of the groom. The letters consist of the “request letter”, the “gift letter” and the “wedding letter”. The entire process breaks down as follows.
The first step involves the groom’s envoy delivering an offer of marriage and also attempting to influence the bride’s family to accept. If the offer of marriage is found to be acceptable by the bride’s family, the two families then enter negotiations to determine the terms of the marriage.
In the second part of the process, the groom’s family requests the numeric birth date and hour of the bride-to-be. They then combine that information with the information of the groom and hire a fortune teller to analyze and determine if the couple are compatible.
If the groom’s family is pleased with the news from the fortune teller they then fulfill part three of the process by sending some initial wedding gifts to the family of the bride.
In step four, the groom’s family will send more gifts, cash, and possibly food items to the family of the bride for them to use in worship.
The previously hired fortune teller then completes step five by selecting the best numerical date for the bride and groom to be wed on.
The sixth and final step is the wedding ceremony itself. Usually in the wedding ceremony both the bride and groom dress in red, including a red veil for the bride. The family homes of both the bride and groom are similarly decorated in red. Servants, musicians, and other hired workers then pick up the bride at her family’s home and deliver her to the home of the groom’s family. It is at this time that the gifts from the bride to the groom are delivered. The bride and groom first pay their respects to the heavens, the earth, and the groom’s deceased ancestors before serving tea to both families. The elders in the family will then present envelopes filled with money to the bride and groom at this time. The “wedding letter” is then presented to the bride’s family confirming that the bride will in fact become a member of the groom’s household. There is then a large feast including many toasts by the family elders pertaining to the happiness of the newly married couple. Not until the bride and groom are alone in the wedding bedroom may the groom finally remove the red bridal veil.
The Three Letter and Six Etiquette Tradition is just one of many unusual and fascinating wedding traditions in the world.
