Online Chinese Almanac

For couples planning on a Chinese wedding who can read Chinese then there's a very extensive online Chinese Almanac website from Taiwan at http://oio.com.tw/. You can find the best date and time to have your wedding ceremony as well as many other Chinese calendar related stuff.

To complement the website, there's also an application available on the Google Android mobile OS. The app is available directly on the Android market or details at http://www.androlib.com/android.application.tw-idv-koji-zij.aspx.

Manchester Wedding Competition - win a whole wedding!

RHOTOGRAPHY in association with Manchester radio station Key 103 are giving away a fabulous wedding… Yes, a whole wedding!

Including the honeymoon, the venue, the food, the dress, the flowers, the cake, the hair, the makeup, dance lessons, venue dressing, gym membership, the photographer, the rings, the cars... Basically everything!

http://www.key103.co.uk/Article.asp?id=1234723

RHOTOGRAPHY is proud to be supplying the photo prize for the competition. You don't have to be the final winner to win though, the first 10 people to mention Key 103 when booking a wedding photography package with us will get a free upgrade.

The upgrade offer is limited to 10 couples only, and closes 7 days after the end of the "I DO" competition, so get in touch now! Call 0161 660 918 or send your questions via the contacts us page.

Best of luck!

Ray
RHOTOGRAPHY

New sample slideshow video

Ok time to give myself a little plug. I am of course a wedding photographer, and who just happens to be Chinese, hence the name of this blog.

Anyway, I've created a little slideshow from some wedding images and I hope you like what you see and visit my wedding photography website for a better look and get in touch via my contacts form on the site.

Professional Wedding Photographer Or Ask A Friend?

So he's popped the question, and you said yes. Sooner or later you will start to think about your wedding photos, and whether to hire a professional photographer or ask cousin Harry with the fancy camera to do it. Here I will try to give you a checklist of things to consider.

Whether you are paying for a professional or asking a friend to do it for free. Remember, whoever it is, he or she will only get one chance to get it right.

1. Ask to see a portfolio, even if it's an amateur photographer friend. You don't want to let someone loose on your wedding until you've seen examples of previous weddings they have shot as the main photographer.
   
   
2. Are they 100% confident in their work to give you want you want? Which of course depends on your expectations. So you need to decide what you want before hand.
   
   
3. Talk to them about what they will do on the day. This is particularly important if it is an amateur shooting your wedding, as it kick start their thinking process, making them start planning the day. If it is a professional, find out if his style of working is what you want.
   
   
4. Sign an agreement to say who gets what. Do you get an album, prints, what size digital files if any? Do they get paid, how much, do they want to use those images of your wedding?
   
   
5. Ask what happens if the photographer cannot turn up on the day, eg due to illness?
   
   
6. Do they have backup equipment. Cameras can fail, even a friend doing your photographs should at least borrow a spare camera. Insist they also have spare flashguns, batteries, memory cards.

Nowadays, it is quite hard to take a really poor photo, even a small compact camera on auto will product a half decent well focused image in most situations. But as the bride and groom, do you just want ok photos or do you think your big day deserves the very best photos? Of course, the answer is a personal one, people put difference emphasis on the photographs.

Having said it's hard to take a really poor photo, it does still happen. The pressure to perform in a fast moving wedding, equipments breaking down, guests misbehaving, dark venues, alcohol influence, unfamilar equipment can all lead to results that are worse than you would normally expect in an everyday situation. But of course, a wedding is not an everyday situation for most people. So be sure you choose someone who knows what they're doing.

Picture styles. A buzzword many photographers often uses is reportage. This to me is the same as documentary, which in their essence aims to capture the story of the day, from the bride and groom getting ready to the ceremony through to the first dance. When done properly can be a wonderful record of the day, but whilst it may sound just a matter of standing to one side and snap away, when done without proper planning the photos will just be a series of snapshots with no real artistic merit. A decent photographer will be able to envisage what will happen next, to find the perfect backdrop, to see a photo opportunity where most people can't, and to make the photos look better than reality.

With reportage or documentary styles, it is important for most people to still incoporate some group photos in the set, these can be formal with everyone carefully posed, or a more relaxed approach.

If you bear the above in mind when deciding on a photographer and go through the checks whether you're paying for a pro or asking a friend for free, then you are more likely to be happy with the results.

Written by Ray Ho, Greater Manchester wedding photographer

The Hair Combing Ceremony

While you may know about the English tradition for the bride to wear something new, something old, something blue and something old on her wedding day, you may not know about some of the traditions for the Chinese bride.

The Hair Combing Ceremony

Known as 上頭 (sheung dau) which roughly translates to "putting the hair up" is a very important ceremony in a Chinese wedding.

On the eve of the wedding day, at the bride and grooms respective homes, the bride's hairs will be ceremonially combed by a "fortunate lady" and the groom's hair combed by a fortunate man. They are essentially someone who has a good married life with healthy wealthy spouse and sons.

Before the ceremony, the bride / groom will bathe in water with leaves from the pomelo fruit tree. The pomelo leaves (椂柚葉) are said to be lucky and is widely use in other ceremonies and festivals, believed to fight off evils. Note, the pomelo should not be mistaken for the grapefruit. The leaves can sometimes be found in supermarkets in China Towns.

A brand new set of pajamas and underwear will be worn after the bath for the ceremony and to sleep in. For the bride, she will wear that pajamas underneath her Qwa when she leaves the house on the wedding day. Yes that's right, jammies underneath the wedding dress! The Qwa, pronounced as kwa, is the traditional red Chinese wedding dress.

The hair combing ceremony will see the fortunate lady (or man for the groom) say a lucky ryme whilst combing the bride's hair, traditionally there are 10 verses in the full rhyme but in modern times only 3 phrases are commonly remembered and used. The first three verses are always the same:

一梳梳到尾
二梳白發齊眉
三梳兒孫滿地

they roughly translate to:

1 stroke to the end,
2 stroke together till hair turn grey
3 stroke kids aplenty

One version of the full rhyme is as follows:

一梳梳到尾
二梳白發齊眉
三梳兒孫滿地
四梳老爺行好運，出路相逢遇貴人
五梳翁娌和順
六梳夫妻相敬
七梳七姐下凡
八梳八仙來賀壽，寶鴨穿蓮道外游
九梳九子連環樣樣有
十梳夫妻兩老就到白頭

I won't try to translate all that and make a fool of myself. Perhaps you readers can help translate it?

That's it for this post, more coming soon.

Modern Chinese Weddings

I'm not a historian so can't tell you about the way Chinese weddings were conducted in the past, but what I can tell you a little about is how it is commonly done today.

Money Matters

While Western traditions says the Father of the Bride will pay for his daughter's wedding, in Chinese tradition, it is the groom's family that pays. The groom will also have to give the bride's family a bride price (禮金) which compensates the lost of their daughter.

Order of the day

Unlike Western traditions where it is thought unlucky for the groom to see the bride before the wedding, in a Chinese wedding, it is the groom's duty to go to the bride's home and bring her back to his parents' home. But before he can enter the bride's house to pick her up, the brides maids would have set up some games to test the groom's worthiness of the bride.

On arriving at the bride's house, the groom will find the door blocked by the bride's maids. Their job is to test the groom (ie make fun of him) for his worthiness. When the games are over, they go into haggling mode, for this is where the groom will have to give a door opening lei-sei (red packet of money) before the girls will let him through the door. This lei-sei will usually have lots of nines in the total, eg £99.99 or £999.99 because nine is thought to sound like longevity in Chinese, so is good luck for the couple.

The Tea Ceremony for the bride's family will take place while the groom is there.

On existing the house, the bride must not step on the door's threshold as that is where the evil spirits lie. So both the bride and groom will take a long stride and step over the threshold. Once outside, the bride should avoid looking back towards the house so mean she would return except for visits.

The wedding carriage nowadays is the usual western style ribbon decorated car.

On arriving at the groom's house, the Mother-in-Law to be and any sisters of the groom will go into their own rooms rather than greet the bride. Supposedly if they met the bride at the door, they will have arguements later on.

Sometimes, there will be a bowl of fire burning on the door step of the house, which the bride will step over for luck, I believe it's to burn away any evil spirits. Don't forget to step over the threshold as well.

Once settled, the new Mother in law and sister in laws may come out of their rooms and greet the bride. The tea ceremony for the groom's family now takes place.

Chinese Tea Ceremony

I received a question about the Chinese tradition of a Tea Ceremony today, unfortunately the person didn't leave an email address for me to reply, only a non UK phone number. So I'll use that as the first topic of my blog.

Before the days of the centralised official marriage register was invented, marriages are essentially a ceremonial affair.  The Chinese wedding tea ceremony being the final ceremony that ties the couple together. So what happens?

There are a hundred and one things the bride and groom and their families will have to do before the ceremony takes place.  And a hundred and one things after it's taken place.  I will leave these for anther post - I got to keep you watching this blog somehow.

What do you need?

For the tea ceremony, you will need a set of new tea cups and tea pot - Chinese tea cups and tea pot set with lucky symbols or writing on them ideally, but English cups are fine if that's all you could get. It is important the tea set is new.

Formally, you will need a elder lady's assistance to serve the tea, she will ideally have a happy marriage and children of her own, so her "luck" with her marriage rubs off on the new couple.

Chinese tea is served with "red dates" (a dried fruit) in it  (this red date is used in  some Chinese soups).  Sugar is often added to the tea to give the marriage a sweet start, and everyone who drinks it will say "very sweet" to the couple.

Order of service

The order that the tea is served is usually the parents first, then in the order of the closeness of relatives and seniority. Think of the ordering as the "pecking order" in the family tree.  So:

- gran parents will be first after the parents

- gran uncles and aunts

- uncles and aunts

- elder siblings

- elder cousins possibly.

You are giving them tea to show them respect and to awknowledge their positions above you in the familyi, so you do not give tea to younger members of the family, unless their position in the family tree is higher, eg say you have an uncle who is younger by age than you, but since he's an uncle, his position is above you and should be given tea.  Generally relatives from the father's side of the family goes before the mother's side.

The current norm when giving tea to relatives in the generation above you, ie, parents, gran parents, the couple will kneel down on cushions while the relatives will take a seat in front of them. When giving tea to those in the same generation as yourself, everyone can stay standing up.

How

During the ceremony, the lady assistant will stand beside the couple and hold out a tray of tea for them. The bride and groom will take the cups off the tray one by one and present them to the relatives in front of them.

Whilst historically there are probably strict rules dictating the order the tea is then served to each set of relatives, it isn't usually followed nowadays.  Generally, the groom will serve to the male relative first (eg father) then to the female (eg mother), then the bride will do the same.  However, this could also in groom to male, bride to male, then groom to female, bride to female. 

When the relative receives the tea, they will take a sip and put it down, perhaps saying very sweet because of the sugar or because to say the couples' gesture is very sweet. They will then give the couple some words of congratulations and maybe a gift or two, but most importantly, they MUST give them a red packet to wish them good luck. This can be simply put into the tray where the tea was served, or given to the bride or groom that gave them the tea.

Someone, usually the chief bride's maid, will be appointed to look after the red packets of money. You are advised to prepare a zipable bag to put them into, a vanity case is often used.

That in essence is the Chinese tea ceremony.

Other topics I intend to write about includes the Chinese wedding games that are played on the groom and groomsmen, as well as games played on the bride and groom at the wedding banquet.

Perhaps in a later post, I will also talk about the nine course Chinese Wedding Banquet.