My Big Fat Traditional Chinese Wedding (Part 1)

I met Gail over a decade ago and have always been fascinated by all the places she travels to...in one year. She is quite a world traveler. I've always wondered who she would find to be her other half, because this person would have to be able to (literally) keep up with her as she travels. Erik is the love of her life and below is their wedding story. 

~Monica Hui
Owner, Lead Planner and Designer
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Guest Blogger and Recent Bride: Gail Kwan

Coming from a Chinese heritage and having attended many weddings growing up, I always knew I wanted mine to be big, red and grand. I wanted to embrace my heritage. Most of the Chinese weddings I've seen always have the dragon and phoenix. For the Chinese, dragon symbolizes the emperor and phoenix symbolizes the empress. These two popular celestial animals are regarded as a perfect couple in Feng Shui. The dragon represents the Yang (or the male) and the phoenix represents the Yin (or the female). The dragon-phoenix symbol is created for the hope that the couple's love and passion will last till the end and they will stay together through thick and thin. Therefore it was imperative for my wedding to have these two symbol displayed in my wedding. 

Another thing I know I needed for my big fat Chinese wedding is the color red. Red is the color for Chinese weddings. This auspicious hue represents luck, happiness and joy - all the things that make for a great wedding and marriage!

Prior to the tea ceremony we had typical door ceremony games and a big roast pig for lunch. As I was telling my bridesmaid and my friends about my vision for the wedding everyone thought it was funny and laughed at the idea. I was persistent and refused to change my mind. After the tea ceremony we went around to take pictures, then we had a dim sum buffet and cocktail hour. After all the eating, we went on to our wedding reception. The only thing I felt was missing was a wedding carriage for the grand entrance. Erik refused to let me have it saying it was silly.

My mentality has always been to “go big or to go home.” Therefore, I wanted a big grand wedding that was different. I thought about my theme and watched endless Chinese olden days chapter movies and noticed all festivities and celebrations involves lanterns.  Lanterns are also thought to hold good luck as well. I ended up buying 60 lanterns to hang inside the Chinese Cultural Center which would also act as the table’s centerpieces, just floating above the center of the table. 

I wanted to have a soft ambient lighting, so we decided to hang lights inside of the lanterns to give it a soft glowing ambiance. Of course, for the grand entrance we wanted a red tunnel to lead into the room as if you were walking back into the olden days Chinese wedding. We had Chinese red patterned chair covers for all the reception chairs. To further symbolize our love, we had a Chinese love knot which we hung above the head table. As well, we had a four foot tall “double happiness” character in the center of the stage and our family names represented as well as the celestial dragon and phoenix.

I initially wanted to order Chinese happiness/wedding red bowls, red plates, tea cups and red chopsticks for all my 350 wedding guests. This was to avoid the white typical bowls and cups you normally get at restaurants but Erik put his foot down and said no. So we compromised and only had the special red Chinese wedding sets for the head table. For our party favors what else would be more fitting than Chinese chopsticks with the happiness character. 

Check out part two of Gail and Erik's wedding story!