The Chinese Betrothal Ceremony

Some of you may have experienced a Chinese wedding before, but unless you are 1) a wedded Asian, or 2) relatives of someone who has gone through a traditional Chinese wedding, you may not have experienced a "Guo Dai Li" (or betrothal ceremony). Essentially, this is a pre-wedding ceremony in which the groom's family visits the bride's family and presents a series of wedding gifts - mostly very traditional and auspicious foods (whole roasted pig!) - and then the bride's family gives back a set of gifts in return. I'm not sure that these ceremonies are usually as boisterous and full of guests as my cousin's was this weekend, but it was definitely fun!




Today's festivities brought to you by the red letter 囍 (aka 'Double Happiness').








Can you tell who the father of the soon to be bride is?






Fathers of the Bride and Groom ham it up.








Trying out the various flavours of 'Wifey Cakes'.




And as you may have seen before from my previous posts, there's always incense and a head-on chicken as part of Chinese festivities.