INDONESIAN CHINESE WEDDING CEREMONY&RECEPTION

WEDDING CEREMONY

Our wedding ceremony & reception is normally conducted in 1 day.. Morning time before 12 noon would be our tea ceremony and night time, after 7 pm would be our reception or wedding party..

Chinese is very superstitious, the one who is in charged of opening the car door is not just somebody or the driver or the groom... It must be a young boy (not married) from the groom's relative.. Preferably, a boy from a dragon year (dragon is one of Chinese horoscope symbols) Dragon means prosperity :) hey, 2012 is a dragon year :)

After meeting the bride, we had a little celebration at the bride's home.. It was just to toss & cheer the Groom & Bride for their blissful marriage :) and no one from Groom's family was allowed to see or attend this little ceremony! so yeah they are all my relatives, aunties, uncles, cousins, etc :)

Tea ceremony at the Groom's place.. The guy wearing suite beside my husband was the ceremony MC, he's the one instructing us to bow, serve tea, kiss, hug, etc Step 1: Bowed to mother & father.. My father in law already passed away, so my husband's oldest auntie was representing his dad.. Since his family is female dominated - no uncle, so his oldest auntie is taking the role Step 2: I kissed my mum-in law to represent our closeness, that I'm her daughter now :)

Step 3: I served tea to my mum in law and oldest auntie. My husband was helping me to carry the teapot but it's ME who had to pour the tea and served it to my husband's mum & oldest auntie & older relatives too

Step 4 : After serving, they took a sip of their hot tea and gave us a red packet (money inside) for luck!! We got one each!!

At the end of the ceremony, we gave out red packets (money inside) to the kids from my husband's family.. His nieces & nephews.. it's to show that we are now married adults. Only marrie

The bed sheet must be red color and it must be brand new too it's the culture and 4 oranges must be placed on each corner of the wedding bed. Orange represents prosperity & happy marriage with a lot of happy & healthy children 

This pair of mugs represents husband & wife as one :) drinking from the same source together

Flowers represent beautiful marriage and Grandpa & Grandma miniatures represent beautiful marriage until we are both old with white hair

Okay, this one is a pee-poo-pot or a Chinese baby's toilet.. Chinese babies pee and poo here in this red pot in the old days. We covered it with red paper & one little boy from the Groom's family (aged 10 or less or even better if the boy was born in the year of dragon) would punch & tear off the red paper covered on top, then he's supposed to take an orange & red packet from the pot and keep it himself!! We had already placed an orange & a red packet inside the piss-pot. After that, he's gonna pee in the pot... A boy's pee represents fertility & pregnancy of a baby boy as the family's first baby boy!!! Interesting??

Red packets symbolise LUCK! A pair of combs, represents brushing each another from

black hair to white hair :) meaning live together until we are old

and this one is very very important, a pair of lights. The lights must be turned on  all day long & night one day before the wedding and one day after the wedding... Chinese believes this would invite or give a sign to the Goddess to come to the couple's room, bless them with happy marriage & beautiful healthy children

 eat sweet egg soup. The ingredients were: 1 egg, 2 red dates, sweet rice balls. The soup was very very sweet. Eating this means we're going to have sweet husband & wife relationship till we're old. Red dates represent sweetness and egg represents 'older' . Eating an egg means we are matured & older, thus we're responsible for our lives & family & future babies

 husband's little nephew was going to destroy the red paper covered on top of the pee-pot (Chinese baby toilet pot) He broke & tore off the red paper!

hen, he took an orange & a red packet out (money inside) and kept him for himself

After that, he brought the pee-pot to the toilet & peed inside the pot. Then, we kept his pee/urine for the whole night.. It's our Chinese wedding tradition! We believe that by asking a little boy (aged 10 or less) to pee on the pot, it would grant us a son as our first child.. Chinese prefers a son than a daughter. Although I don't mind having a daughter but I still followed the old tradition

and there's another tradition! My mum told me that my wedding flowers CAN NOT be discarded or be given to someone else, no matter if someone is a single, attached or married! I HAVE to keep my wedding flowers myself. I HAVE to keep it until I pass away & later pass it on to my daughter when I pass away.. I dried my wedding flowers & keep it until now. It has been many months since our wedding but I still have my dried wedding flowers with me.. My mum said it's best to put the flowers above my wardrobe.. My tradition believes that by keeping wedding flowers, we'll have beautiful wedding with beautiful children.. Somehow they believe that flowers are fertility symbol