If you missed part one of Gail and Erik's wedding story, you can read it here.
I decided on Chinese flavours for our wedding cake, taro and green tea. It was most important for me that the bakery understood my wedding vision. I know I needed the double happiness character but more importantly I had to look around for a bakery that was willing to do a 3D gold dragon and phoenix which would wrap around the entire cake. In a traditional Chinese wedding, the night of the wedding, the bridal room would lit dragon and phoenix candles to drive away evil spirits. This was a Chinese version of unity candle so I knew I wanted candles to go with my theme. Since it had a dragon and phoenix on the candle, we lit and placed them on the cake table as accents.
All of my wedding dresses were Chinese traditional red color wedding dresses. During the tea ceremony I had the “kwa.” I changed into a phoenix red long train mermaid dress during dim sum and cocktail hours. For the grand entrance I went into a very vibrant Chinese pattern modern mermaid tulle dress.
During the toasting I special ordered tea cups and changed into a beautiful red and laced gold “qi piao” and the final dress was a modern mermaid style red qi piao. To match my traditional red dresses I wanted traditional Chinese hair pieces that the Chinese empress would normally wear. I got a lot of gold pieces to accent the red colors and in shapes of butterflies, phoenixes and gold flowers. Because I had six dress changes, I wanted my bridesmaid to have a dress change too. I wanted to keep the same theme and did not want to go with a western style dress, so I ordered the tang style Chinese dresses for them to wear in both red and gold. And of course lets not forget shoes! I had four pairs of shoes all Chinese red styles and even a pair of red slippers with the characters “lao pao” and “lao gong”. Meaning wife and husband.
Erik he had the traditional Chinese long dress to match my “kwa” for the tea ceremoney and in the evening he changed into a Bruce Lee kung foo style outfit. Erik's outfit had red and gold dragons while his groomsman wore the black and gold dragons. They all had matching black dragon pants and black toms because I thought they looked like the “heu” in the olden Chinese kung fu styles.
During the toasting I special ordered tea cups and changed into a beautiful red and laced gold “qi piao” and the final dress was a modern mermaid style red qi piao. To match my traditional red dresses I wanted traditional Chinese hair pieces that the Chinese empress would normally wear. I got a lot of gold pieces to accent the red colors and in shapes of butterflies, phoenixes and gold flowers. Because I had six dress changes, I wanted my bridesmaid to have a dress change too. I wanted to keep the same theme and did not want to go with a western style dress, so I ordered the tang style Chinese dresses for them to wear in both red and gold. And of course lets not forget shoes! I had four pairs of shoes all Chinese red styles and even a pair of red slippers with the characters “lao pao” and “lao gong”. Meaning wife and husband.
Erik he had the traditional Chinese long dress to match my “kwa” for the tea ceremoney and in the evening he changed into a Bruce Lee kung foo style outfit. Erik's outfit had red and gold dragons while his groomsman wore the black and gold dragons. They all had matching black dragon pants and black toms because I thought they looked like the “heu” in the olden Chinese kung fu styles.
Overall, I loved every moment of my wedding and felt like the details worked out immaculately. I felt that the décor really did bring my vision to life. I am looking forward to planning and having a 10 year anniversary wedding reception dinner now!
